Al Gore doesn't think nuclear power is the answer
It's always nice when people agree with you. We've maintained that nuclear power is a dangerous distraction to the real solutions to the climate crisis for a long time now. It's dirty, it's unsafe, it's a threat to world peace and it is terribly, terribly expensive.
Now, Al Gore, who's sometimes been on the other side of this argument has come round to our position. Because, as he notes, even if you assume problems with safety and waste can be overcome, it just doesn't make sense economically.
Over at our Nuclear Reaction weblog we've been chronicling the meltdown of the nuclear industry for a while now. Last year the number of nuclear reactors connected to the world's electricity grids fell by one. In January this year two more were removed, while the next reactor scheduled to go online is the Iranian build in Bushehr, a project which almost no-one outside Iran wants to see proceed.
Meanwhile China builds a wind turbine every two hours. What looks like the technology of the 21st century to you?
Follow Greenpeace »
Comments
Al hits it right on the head – he knows nothing about science. His point about not knowing the cost to build a nuclear power plant is ridiculous. They’re building hundreds of them all over the world as I type. The ONLY variable is that the congress passed legislature during Clinton’s administration to allow limitless lawsuits. And the spent fuel issue has been resolved – save for the politics of the land. Fuel can be recycled and the remnant stored without consequence. It’s happening in France and Korea. And China, in addition to your disingenuous comment about building windmills, is building 32 nuclear plants by 2020 and may add as many as 200 by 2050 according to an MIT report.
Posted by: Dave | April 17, 2009 10:00 PM
"They’re building hundreds of them all over the world as I type."
No they're not. An estimate we put together last year suggested that by 2015 the industry could have- at best - 86 reactors actually under construction. Not completed, not finished, just started. That's a lot more than today, especially if you don't include the dozen or so reactors which have been 'under construction' for more than twenty years.
That's not actually enough to make up for all the reactors due to be taken offline in that period.
Since then we've had to revise the estimate. A government tender for 2 reactors in South Africa was withdrawn since the planned reactors were going to be too expensive. Meaning there were no commercial tenders for new reactors open anywhere in the world.
A bit later in Turkey the sole bidder to develop a new nuclear power plant came in with a plan to provide electricity at 7 times the price of their current suppliers. So the Turkish dream is in trouble too.
In Finland the experience of building Olkiluoto has changed the estimate of planned new power plants from 1-2 to 0-1. It seems that wherever you look the nuclear dream is in trouble.
Incidentally, this year China expects to double its wind resources again, building more or less a turbine an hour. Now that's progress.
Posted by: Martin Lloyd | April 20, 2009 9:42 AM
Al Gore does not oppose nuclear.
http://atomic.thepodcastnetwork.com/2006/09/30/al-gore-and-nuclear-power/
His new book "Our choice" does not oppose nuclear. His father was apparently a member of the joint committee on atomic energy.
He has helped capture the green movement to demonize/tax carbon and in so doing bubble nuclear as the *only* solution capable of economically generating *large* amounts of carbon-free sustainable energy in a short timeframe.
The UN could easily pay for nuclear reactors in developing countries with the megabillion dollar climate change fund and nobody would have much say.
See also a climate scientist (warmist) view:
http://bravenewclimate.com/
(BTW
a. The science of thermodynamics says greenhouse gases cannot possibly cause warming by radiation from a cooler body to a warmer body. The scientific community will shift it understanding.
b. Energy physics says warming could easily be caused by thermal pollution. See . Energy physics is far more robust than long-range temperature prediction by computer models based on a modelled or observed climate sensitivity parameter.)
Environmentalists need to think a lot harder about how to stop nuclear being the preferred solution. A strong Copenhagen deal could have sealed it.
Posted by: B Louis79 | December 26, 2009 3:51 PM