Lacking in power? A new report finds that nuclear power isn't the answer to the world's green energy needs.
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Nuclear power plants cannot be built quickly enough and in a safe and secure manner to be a major global solution for climate change, according to a report released yesterday from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
The report says the nuclear industry, under current policies and financing, won't be able to build enough new reactors to make a difference in climate in the next 20 years.
"Without major changes in government policies and aggressive financial support, nuclear power is actually likely to account for a declining percentage of global electricity generation," the report says.
The International Energy Agency's World Energy Outlook 2008 projects that without policy changes, nuclear power's share of worldwide electricity generation will drop from 15 percent in 2006 to 10 percent in 2030.
But policymakers should be aware of the timeline, costs and risks nuclear power brings as compared to the possible benefits, before expending a tremendous amount of resources on it, the report says.
Bottlenecks in the nuclear supply chain, weak infrastructure in developing countries and tighter credit risk management strategies in the wake of the economic crises will severely limit all countries' capabilities to significantly expand their nuclear fleet, while the current fleet of reactors is likely to be retired by 2030, the report said.
The earliest the first new U.S. reactor could be finished is 2015, but the report notes that it takes about 10 years to put a new plant in service, from licensing to connection to the grid. In two dozen countries that are interested in obtaining civil nuclear energy but have not previously built a reactor, it will take even longer, the report says.
"The exigencies of energy security and climate change do not warrant racing ahead before institutional frameworks can ensure that any expansion makes sense, not just for energy needs, but for world security," the report says.
The report argues that nuclear energy is not likely to have a significant effect on energy security, either.
It will take at least two decades to convert the world's car fleet from oil to electricity. Transportation is the only sector where nuclear energy can significantly replace oil.
In addition, uranium and nuclear fuel come from only a few countries – Canada, Australia, Russia, the United States and France – making nations without resources or technologies as dependent on foreign sources of energy as before, the report notes. Worse still, it says, the need for fuel may drive more nations to develop their own uranium enrichment facilities, raising the risk of the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
Reprinted from Greenwire with permission from Environment & Energy Publishing, LLC. www.eenews.net, 202-628-6500
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51 Comments
Add CommentGood picture of natural draft cooling tower (the hyperbolic shapes emitting steam plumes). These are often found in nuclear power plants, but the very tall, two flue chimney behind them indicates this is a fossil plant.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOtherwise, the content of the article is spot on: the vastness of our inventory of fossil power plants will take enormous effort, and much time, to replace with any kind of climate-friendly systems.
This study (at least as reported in the article) seems to look at nuclear power generated by large power plants. However, there are new "mini-reactors," going online within the next year or two that are sealed for the life of the reactor and have no moving parts, which can power 20,000 homes for decades. They're small enough to be transported by truck or rail and are designed to be buried. The radioactive material inside is a weak emitter and cannot be used for proliferation. The only personnel they require is someone to guard the site where they're buried. Burying them under police stations would solve that logistical problem.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe large power companies prefer those giant nuclear power plants because it maximizes profits. Their worries about profit margin should not concern us.
These mini-reactors could be the answer we seek to free ourselves from our lethal and unsustainable reliance on fossil fuels.
This is a good article but it misses an important point - the embodied energy of nuclear power plants and its effect during growth of the industry. For nuclear power to make a dent in carbon emissions it would have to grow so quickly that a severe energy cannibalism would occur. Energy cannibalism refers to an effect where rapid growth of an entire energy producing industry creates a need for energy that uses (or cannibalizes) the energy of existing power plants. Recent theoretical papers looking at a fast growth rate case doesn't have nuclear contributing to mitigation of climate change as a whole until around 2050. We need to cut energy quickly and ramp up more nimble alternative energy sources even more rapidly.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisActually, the ONLY answer is to reduce population growth, and population.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf we don't do this, it wouldn't matter if we all drive a Prius: the environment will suffer, because of our sheer numbers. Of course, religion and idiotic "cultural sensitivity" will avoid mentioning this at all cost.
Back to topic: nuclear power is an alternative, and shouldn't be dismissed.
If environmentalists had not blocked nuclear power plant construction over the past 30 years, the nuclear reactors we need would be in operation by now.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEvolvingApe, if you believe the World would be better off with fewer people on it, you can always volunteer to remove yourself. I've noticed that population control advocates say we should reduce the population, but only want to do so if it means preventing other people from living.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree with EvolvingApe completely. Reducing our population is the only way we are ever going to solve our problems.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLimiting families to one child would reduce the world population by more than half in a single generation.
And what on earth are you talking about juf? Preventing people from living?!? If you are born you have the right to continue living but if you were never born in the first place you have no rights.
If things do not change it will become necessary to limit family sizes by law in places other than China, and that includes places like America where people currently live under the false belief that their personal freedoms out weight the needs of our species as a whole.
Natedog, people have every right to choose to keep on living or not. They also have every right to decide for themselves how many children to have. Population advocates pressure people into giving us that second right. If a population advocate is that concerned about reducing the population, he can remove himself from the total rather than presuring others about their reproductive choices.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisjtuf, apparently, you have difficulties grasping the concepts of "existing sentient being."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI suppose, the alternative to family planning, would be to withdraw all support for the poor and the disadvantaged, who are generally the ones most likely to have multiple offspring. Then things will go back to where they were, a couple of centuries ago, when a significant portion of such offspring died from disease and malnutrition, thus keeping population growth in check.
We spay/neuter animals to prevent overpopulation. We don't sterilize people today, because of the assumption, that people have higher intelligence and thus can control their population growth.
Unfortunately, as is evident, from your comments, not all people posses such higher intelligence.
Regarding population - people are going to have it off no matter what. But if we don't get a handle on this energy thing, that in itself is going to reduce the population of the planet fairly quickly, conceivably to the point where we can all go back to using charcoal for our power needs. Of course, that will turn the entire planet into one big giant Haiti, and it's not a pretty picture.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPopulation is one thing and clean energy is another. To mix the two up is simply to prolong the argument in a way that simply promotes paralysis.
"Population is one thing and clean energy is another."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this_____
Not exactly true.
The only reason we are even worried about clean energy, is because our exploding population is using and needing more and more of it.
In reality, most energy generation we use today is significantly cleaner, and more efficient, than it was in the past. If it wasn't for rapid population growth, we wouldn't even be talking about energy.
But it's not just energy. The environment is being hammered not only by "dirty energy" production, but by increasing food and water demands, urban sprawl, habitat destruction, etc..
We were much more destructive species a century ago, but the impact was considerably less, because we were just over one and a half billion. In less than a hundred years, we have grown to almost seven billion, all demanding increasing amounts of energy and resources to sustain us. And the majority are poor, uneducated and religious, which means that they think exactly like our friend jtuf here, and will keep pushing the numbers up.
So, again, deal with population growth, and you'll solve all the other problems.
Here's how to use nuclear power to save mankind. Get a apricot size ball of polonium and put it inside a grapefruit size ball of plutonium. Then wrap the whole thing in C4 and repeat 2000 times. Then send all the gizmos to the most populated areas on earth and detonate them 1500 feet above the ground.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSee, nuclear power can save mankind.
"[People]... have every right to decide for themselves how many children to have."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCurrently they have that right, that doesn't mean they must have that right or will have that right in the future.
"If a population advocate is that concerned about reducing the population, he can remove himself from the total rather than pressuring others about their reproductive choices."
So rather than responsibly managing our population some of us should just kill ourselves? Yeah, nice plan. Problem is that sooner rather than later all those people who killed themselves will be replaced and more.
Actually, if we had efficient power, we could easily go to other planets, moons and terra form. Our power is not efficient or smart. Its not sustainable and yeah, population issues will cause problems, even if we have all the energy we need.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo the Moon! To the Mars! To the stars!
The French were able to rush through a nuclear power program in the 70's, from almost no nuclear power in the late 1960's they were producing more than half their energy needs by nuclear power by 1980. If, the French can do it in ten years surely it would take the Americans, with a lot of help from the French of course, no more than twenty years?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs far as the population is concerned, yes it is a problem, but no we can't do much about it. You simply cannot restrict a person's reproductive rights in a free and democratic society, it would not work. The best thing you could do would be to make incentives for people to have fewer children. For instance, if the government only allowed you to claim two children as dependents, that would cut down on the number of people sucking the government teat by pumping out babies. But it still won't put a dent in the issue.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPersonally, I think the US is doing a good job of limiting the population growth with its increasingly liberal outlook on sex and the formation of a family. People want to have sex and party for as long as possible, they don't want to have kids. Or at least that's what quite a number of the people I know feel toward life.
Now if we could just convince the religious nuts that we have indeed spread forth and multiplied enough to cover the earth... and condoms are not evil no matter how difficult they are to put on... that might actually cause a dip in population. However, I think that an economic decline or a plague is more likely to cause major population decline and we're due for both.
Now, on to the article.
I think it's a shame that our policies keep us from acting more quickly on matters that are so important to the survival of this country. I do consider myself an environmentalist and I support nuclear power. If they can manage to come up with a solution that does not produce prolific amounts of radioactive waste... such as molten salt reactors... then it might not be so bad.
If you don't want nuclear power then it's easy to claim it won't work to save the world from AGW that does,t exist.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe population problem is already beginning to be solved, just watch the next 10 years. Wide spread famine and disease caused by global cooling and government manipulations that are already started.
AGC will be the next nutball religion.
None of the various alternatives to carbon-based fuels can be ramped up in short run and it should be no surprise that nuclear power faces challenges. Nevertheless, remains the most promising individual medium term solution to the climate change problem. We should explore all alternatives, but recognize that a solution w/o nuclear is impossible.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI don't think we can give up on countering climate change. If nuclear power has a long lead time, we should get to work immediately. That is what this article tells me.
By relgious nuts having too many kids, I assume you are refering to people mostly in the Muslim world and in Africa. How would you address them?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBirthrates in the developed world are already at or below replacement level, so that job is really done. Population control advocates often aim their formidable powers of pursuasion at the wrong targets.
Nuclear energy is cleaner and safer than driving a car. Population of developed nations is falling. The so called environmentalists have made sure that we have a small percentage of the total energy available. We are in a mess and electric cars will make it worse. What is the answer. Some want us to go back to the dark ages.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNuclear energy is safer and cleaner than cars. So called environmentlalists want to stop progress and put us back into the dark ages so they can live in Skyscrapers and rull us. This of course is slavery.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Nuclear power plants cannot be built quickly enough and in a safe and secure manner to be a major global solution for climate change..."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEliminate the exterraeneous requirements on the nuclear industry and you will solve the first problem! The reason it takes 10 years, is that there are mandatory "Waiting periods" -- delays -- given so that the local environmentalist whacko groups can stall & litigate the plant to death. The engineering & safety logistics (including redundancy and population/environmental factors) can be worked out in 2-3 years. The building phase can be completed in 1-2 years (with all necessary safety/code checks done in-line, during the process of building the plant).
The only reason energy is even an issue, is due to (very legitimate) concerns from environmentalists in the 60's-70's; they really envisioned a world with all solar/wind/renewable energy. There's nothing wrong with renewables, it's just that we now know, that they are going to cost way too much to implement and maintain. Sorry guys! One modern mini-reactor can offset incredible numbers of wind-fueled turbines & solar panels. I'm here to tell you, that technology will never advance to the point where these above-mentioned renewable sources can ever compete with nuclear fission/fusion. It will not happen. sorry.
The number of turbines (and the area the windfarms would need to operate) is staggering! powering moderate (100-200K) cities with windfarms is completely out of the question -- not even considering energy generating reliability (on calm days, or days that aren't sunny, or under icy/snowy conditions, ect) My back of the envelope calculations give renewables 80% operational capabilities (operating 80% of the time throughout the year; that would be a miracle! )
Nuclear energy is the way to go, it's just that the left-wing environentalist movement (as opposed to the rest of us) needs to back off, and really study the situation at hand, with the blinders off. It's not an admission of ideological failure to admit that the attacks on the nuclear industry 30 years ago have been a bit overblown. Nuclear energy holds vast potential to solve our energy needs, with little or no damage done to the environment.
"Nuclear power plants cannot be built quickly enough and in a safe and secure manner to be a major global solution for climate change..."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEliminate the exterraeneous requirements on the nuclear industry and you will solve the first problem! The reason it takes 10 years, is that there are mandatory "Waiting periods" -- delays -- given so that the local environmentalist whacko groups can stall & litigate the plant to death. The engineering & safety logistics (including redundancy and population/environmental factors) can be worked out in 2-3 years. The building phase can be completed in 1-2 years (with all necessary safety/code checks done in-line, during the process of building the plant).
The only reason energy is even an issue, is due to (very legitimate) concerns from environmentalists in the 60's-70's; they really envisioned a world with all solar/wind/renewable energy. There's nothing wrong with renewables, it's just that we now know, that they are going to cost way too much to implement and maintain. Sorry guys! One modern mini-reactor can offset incredible numbers of wind-fueled turbines & solar panels. I'm here to tell you, that technology will never advance to the point where these above-mentioned renewable sources can ever compete with nuclear fission/fusion. It will not happen. sorry.
The number of turbines (and the area the windfarms would need to operate) is staggering! powering moderate (100-200K) cities with windfarms is completely out of the question -- not even considering energy generating reliability (on calm days, or days that aren't sunny, or under icy/snowy conditions, ect) My back of the envelope calculations give renewables 80% operational capabilities (operating 80% of the time throughout the year; that would be a miracle! )
Nuclear energy is the way to go, it's just that the left-wing environentalist movement (as opposed to the rest of us) needs to back off, and really study the situation at hand, with the blinders off. It's not an admission of ideological failure to admit that the attacks on the nuclear industry 30 years ago have been a bit overblown. Nuclear energy holds vast potential to solve our energy needs, with little or no damage done to the environment.
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Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt sad how far Scientific American has fallen away from true science and has assumed the same slant as newspapers. No wonder its readership is falling. Citing such "authoritative" anti-nuclear organizations as reliable sources realy irritates me. If you cannot build nuclear plants fast enough you sure as hell will not be able to build anything else fast enough either!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIs jtuf an acronym, meaning 'just too unbelievably fatuous'?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGentlemen:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm quite astonished reading your article, as I think that the only serious solutions to the "energy sans CO2" is the nucler energy in to main roads.
1. The fission reactors, which can provide a safe performance in their new Generation IV design, and
2. The fusion reactors, of which the ITER project might be the flagship.
I am amazed with the trillion's dance of the G8 trying to save the economic structure --on which of course I agree--, but nobody seems to remember the medium term solutions. A few billions on both avenues would provide the sufficient kick and time compression for a globe which is scarse of TIME to react.
Gentlemen:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm quite astonished reading your article, as I think that the only serious solutions to the "energy sans CO2" is the nucler energy in to main roads.
1. The fission reactors, whcich can provide a safe performance in their new Generation IV design, and
2. The fusion reactors, of which the ITER project might be the flagship.
I am amazed with the trillion's dance of the G8 trying to save the economic structure --on which of course I agree--, but nobody seems to remember the medium term solutions. A few billions on both avenues would provide the sufficient kick and time compression for a globe which is scarse of TIME to react.
Gentlemen:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm quite astonished reading your article, as I think that the only serious solutions to the "energy sans CO2" is the nucler energy in to main roads.
1. The fission reactors, whcich can provide a safe performance in their new Generation IV design, and
2. The fusion reactors, of which the ITER project might be the flagship.
I am amazed with the trillion's dance of the G8 trying to save the economic structure --on which of course I agree--, but nobody seems to remember the medium term solutions. A few billions on both avenues would provide the sufficient kick and time compression for a globe which is scarse of TIME to react.
This "report" is ridiculous!!!!! Absolutely ridiculous!!! It is one thing for a power company to build a reactor through the CURRENT "permitting" process: it is quite another for the contractors who build nuclear-powered ships, aircraft carriers, etc, for the U. S. Navy to build reactors of approximately the same size.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe United States Navy has a long history of building and operating high-power reactors under some rather extreme conditions - far more extreme than the conditions faced by any civilian power reactor.
They do it by STRICT adherence to very strict standards both in the construction and the operation of these reactors.
Anthropogenic CO2-induced global warning is an existential threat not only to the United States but to the entire world: not just to man-kind (shouldn't that be man-unkind?) but to the current inventory of life-as-we-know-it: we are in the beginning of another Great Die-off, akin to the Extinction at the K-T boundary. If we dither around much longer we will be far enough down the slippery slope that we will have no hope of retracing our steps: too many species will have died: too much environmental change will have taken place.
And yes, there ARE too many humans alive on the face of the Earth, and unless we do something about THAT problem we will find ourselves limited the NATURAL way... by disease, conflict, and starvation.
But back to nuclear: those who advocate solar photo-voltaic or solar thermal or wind or tidal are simply engaging in naive wishful thinking: they have no idea of the size of the energy budget of the human race.
Example: a couple of summers ago Con Ed - the power company that supplies New York City - recorded a peak demand of approximately 14,000 Megawatts. There is supposedly a 64 Megawatt solar-something facility "under development" in the SouthWest. I say supposedly because I have seen it touted by various different utilities for most of a decade now - I have yet to see it mentioned as being in operation.
At any rate: 14,000/64 = 218.5... And that is for just one city, and doesn't make any provision for generating and storing power for use AFTER the sun goes down, nor for the admittedly fewer days each year when the sky is overcast, nor for the power loss in transmitting the power from the Southwest to the Northeast, etc. etc. etc.
Ditto for wind, tidal, etc.
Of course, all is explained when one understands that the author of the report is a person who has made a career of non-proliferation.
Dolmance: sorry: population and clean energy are very tightly intertwined: if we had only 10% of the current population then our energy demands would be sufficiently less that we wouldn't be in the fix we currently find ourselves in...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd it doesn't matter a tinker's damn if we have petawatts of absolutely non-polluting power available to each and every one of the approximately 6.5 billions of humans alive today: there are simply too many of us and we are killing off the rest of the environment to the extent that we will no longer be able to survive.
ANYONE betting on FUSION power is using a controlled substance...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFission power WORKED! the very first time it was tried; no muss, no fuss, no tinkering around: simply pile up a sufficient assembly of carbon blocks with uranium slugs and PRESTO! "The Italian Navigator has entered the new world: the Natives are friendly".
Contrast this with a half-century of fiddling around trying to get the damn thing to even SPARK, much less actually produce any power.
And the flood of neutrons from the fission process is going to be equally "dirty", if not more so...
I think the eco-romantics need to get over the fact that they can't have their cake and eat it too. All energy involves trade-offs, and insisting on environmentally perfect solutions is a waste of time. Life is a series of successive approximations; take a step, adjust... take a step, adjust... repeat as necessary.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis article would be more useful if it actually linked to the report in question. That's the whole point of this world wide web thing.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHere you go:
* Web intro: http://carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=22749&prog=zgp&proj=zec,znpp
* Full report ("Nuclear Energy; Rebirth or Resuscitation" 77pages): http://carnegieendowment.org/files/nuclear_energy_rebirth_resuscitation.pdf
What a bunch of crap. EBR11 breeders or SFR derivatives thereof are simple, economical to construct, if well engineered, have been proven safe and reliable and avoid the many problems associated with LWR systems; which arguably are the worst possible choice for a reactor generating system. The Plutonium a breeder produces is so contaminated with Pu 240 and other transuranics that it is essentially impossible to process and use it for bomb production. Additionally the so-called waste transuranic materials produced by LWR systems can be burned in a breeder thereby reducing or essentially eliminating the vast storehouse of LWR waste presently in storage. The problem is academic nerds, insufferable bureaucrats and a petroleum industry that doesn't wish to solve our energy defecits except with oil or perhaps a commodities market to make billions with U235 commodities. We don't have an energy problem we have a political problem that will ruin us as a nation before they give up.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEugenics is NOT the answer. For those advocating limiting family size, gov't should not take part in "population control". Nor should it eliminate the aged, abort the young, and sacrifice the weak. TV has been shown to be instrumental in dramatically lowering family size, but it at least is voluntary.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBesides, climate will change whether humans do anything or not. What we need to focus on is adaptation.
Perhaps jtuf also believes that everyone has the right to burden society with however many children they care to produce regardless of their own ability to support them or cure their ills.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGov't policy can change. A new modular nuclear power plant design has been created that powers 20,000 home. Such a system lowers risk and simplifies installation because it can be placed at many points along the grid.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNuclear power not only cuts replaces fossil fuel in electric cars, but also in all power generation where coal, oil or natural gas is the primary fuel.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe only way to have nuclear energy is to build power plants. The U.S. has uranium and the technology to recycle nuclear waste exists in France and Canada. We just need the will to do it.
"Eugenics is NOT the answer...."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this___________________
HUH?! How did you get from family planing, to "eliminating the old, ... blah, blah...."?!
What part of "have one child, or max two, or none," can't you figure out? Or using the pill, or a condom, or even having an abortion, when necessary?
With exponentially rising demand for everything from food to space, energy is hardly your only problem.
TV doesn't seem to work in the trailers, unfortunately.
Near-Zero CO2 Plan
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAll our power requirements are for lighting, heating, transport, and energy for such things as industry on down to exercise machines.
The lighting can be zero rated by building Buxton Geothermal Power Stations (BGTGs) which use the heat of the earth at depth by drilling ten kilometre deep holes.
The heating can be near-zero rated by installing Starlite coatings, which can prevent heat leaks, on the walls and ceilings of all premises.
Transport can be made near-zero in terms of carbon emissions by ensuring that all vehicles use BGTG electricity.
The carbon footprints of long range transport can be at least halved by having their fuels mixed permanently with water using an ultrasonic dibber.
Finally, the power needed for energy can be made entirely of BGTG electricity.
Mental illness costs the UK £100 billion per year, enough for the plan. The Kadir-Buxton Method can cure the ill in thirty seconds for free.
Well spotted, Energygirl. I had not heard or thought of that.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe ideas of emergy analysis and environmental accounting, as developed by H.T. Odum, are are as remote as Sanscrit from the minds of nuclear proponents.
Briefly, for the benefit of those who haven't heard of the terms, environmental accounting provides a method of energy flow analysis that offers an objective means of comparing different energy technologies. Whole state economies and industries may be analysed; this has been done for West Virginia and Iceland, for example.
See
http://www.epa.gov/nheerl/publications/files/wvevaluationposted.pdf for an example.
Google can provide plenty of information on this topic, which needs to be far more widely appreciated and understood
Thanks for the link to the .pdf, thomasn528. It's indirectly available through hyperlink in the article, but I don't expect many will retrieve it, let alone read it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI've had a quick scan and sampling. Page 1 note page 1 of the is worth quoting at length, as it makes plain the technologically, geopolitically and economically complex nature of pursuing what Amory Lovins described as the 'hard energy path" over 30 years ago.
"Enthusiasm for nuclear energy is on the rise worldwide. After two decades of disappointing growth, industry leaders are forecasting a nuclear renaissance. Predictions of a “nuclear renaissance” envision a doubling or tripling of nuclear capacity by 2050, spreading nuclear power to new markets in the Middle East and Southeast Asia, and developing new kinds of reactors and fuel-reprocessing techniques. During the presidency of George W. Bush, the United States promoted nuclear energy both at home and abroad. Programs like the 2006 Global Nuclear Energy Partnership and President Bush’s 2007 joint declaration with then–Russian president Vladimir Putin to facilitate and support nuclear energy in developing countries have helped underwrite the notion of a major worldwide nuclear revival."
Renewed interest in nuclear energy arises from the desire to find alternatives to expensive oil and natural gas as well as the perception of nuclear energy as a readily deployable option for making the rapid and dramatic reductions in carbon dioxide emissions necessary to mitigate climate change. Energy security and climate change are invariably mentioned as the top two reasons for pursuing nuclear energy today.
A major expansion of nuclear power, however, is not a foregone conclusion. The traditional challenges besetting nuclear energy—cost,safety, waste, and proliferation—continue to limit widespread growth. Government policies supporting nuclear energy would be necessary to make major expansion a reality. In considering whether or not to promote nuclear energy, a starting point for analysis is whether nuclear energy can really make a significant difference for energy security and for climate change mitigation.
This report suggests that nuclear power could provide greater diversity of electricity resources, but will not solve the dilemma of dependence on foreign oil. Moreover, few countries can expect more than interdependence when it comes to nuclear energy because of the existing nuclear supply structure and location of uranium resources."
http://carnegieendowment.org/files/nuclear_energy_rebirth_resus
Okay, but isn't this an even slower way to reduce emissions? Unless you are planning on wiping out large populations on purpose, which seems to be as deadly as climate change anyway. It is a common comment, nay, a mantra, that there are too many people, and I never understand the comment. It seems void of any practical answers.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNB: My above comment was a reply to the population limit comments, but it didn't link to them.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think 2. generation biofuels are a real possibility.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisProfessional site for nuclear energy:
www.world-nuclear.org/why/default.aspx
www.world-nuclear.org
See critical views about wind enrgy:
www.aweo.org/ProblemWithWind.html
I fully agree,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thissee also
www.world-nuclear.org/info/info.html#newreactors
I agree,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thissee more
www.world-nuclear.org/info/info.html#newreactors
Surely Americans ca do it,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisbut do the establishment, oil- and coal-compnies want it?
What about the waste? It's convenient to ignore that, huh?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am very disappointed with this article from SciAm. I find that it unfairly portrays the report that it is about.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou report issue with the expansion of the use of nuclear as if the issue were problems, with out solutions. Well all sources of power have both problems and solutions. The 92 page report mensioned some of the solutions, but not all. Your article did not.
Well nuclear is already the most economical and cleanest source of power. Only doubling the use of Nuclear, offsetting the use of coal, would make a huge impact on Co2 emissions. To do that with wind or solar would require hundreds of time in the increase of production. Mean while wind and solar is economically unproven.
In the past I have used SciAm as a honest source of information about Science and Technology. I hope you go back to unbias reporting in the future.