Saving the world
from climate change
is the wrong reason
to favor nuclear power.
A large supply of inexpensive,
clean and reliable energy
is the right reason.
Climate change has always
been good news, not a problem.
and is very likely to continue
being good news, not a problem.
The world doesn't need saving
from "climate change".
And nuclear power is not going
to save anyone.
But nuclear power plants
should have been replacing
coal power plants since
the 1960s.
If France could
"do it", long ago.
then what are we,
in the US,
waiting for ?
I guess we are waiting for
wacky "environmentalists"
to stop hating nuclear power !
Fossil fuels can power the world,.
But they emit CO2.
Windmills and solar thermal
power reduce CO2,
but they can’t power the world.
Nuclear can power the world,
and reduce CO2.
Leftists who fear CO2
have to get over their
unjustified aversion
unjustified aversion
to nuclear power.
In the US we build power plants
to make electricity we need.
We used to build nuclear plants
when the cost of getting fossil fuels
to the power plant made nuclear
power economical.
We build wind and solar generators
that we do not need, so those people
who skipped science in school
can feel good about themselves !
An April 6, 2019 'opinion piece'
in the New York Times,
with a strong leftist bias,
actually had good things
to say about nuclear power:
"Nuclear Power
Can Save the World ?
Expanding the technology
is the fastest way to slash
greenhouse gas emissions
and decarbonize the economy."
By Joshua S. Goldstein,
Staffan A. Qvist and
Steven Pinker
It’s a single guest editorial ("op-ed")
in the April 6, 2019 New York Times.
Op-eds are written by people
who are not members of the
NYTimes staff or editorial board.
They are published, on a page
opposite the editorial page,
to showcase ideas different than
those proclaimed by the
unsigned editorial opinion pieces
on the editorial page
( the official opinion of the NYTimes,
is opposition to nuclear power
and the continued operation
of the Indian Point nuclear
plant in New York State ).
Drs. Goldstein and Qvist
are the authors of
“A Bright Future:
How Some Countries
Have Solved Climate Change
and the Rest Can Follow.”
Dr. Pinker is a
psychology professor
at Harvard.
Dr. Goldstein is an International Relations professor.
Joshua S. Goldstein is an International Relations professor who writes about the big issues facing humanity. He is the author of six books about war, peace, diplomacy, and economic history, and a bestselling college textbook, International Relations. Among other awards, his book War and Gender (2001) won the International Studies Association’s “Book of the Decade Award” in 2010. Goldstein has a B.A. from Stanford and a Ph.D. from M.I.T. He is professor emeritus at American University in Washington, DC, and research scholar at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where he lives. See http://www.joshuagoldstein.com.
Only Qvist has a relevant professional background:
Staffan A. Qvist is a Swedish engineer, scientist and consultant to clean energy projects around the world. He has lectured and authored numerous studies in the scientific literature on various topics relating to energy technology and policy, nuclear reactor design and safety, and climate change mitigation strategies – research that has been covered by Scientific American and many other media outlets. Trained as a nuclear engineer (Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley), he is now involved in renewable energy development projects and also works with several “fourth generation” nuclear start-ups. See http://www.staffanqvist.com.
April 6, 2019:
"Where will this gargantuan amount
of carbon-free energy come from?
The popular answer is renewables
alone, but this is a fantasy.
Wind and solar power
are becoming cheaper,
but they are not available
around the clock, rain or shine,
and batteries that could power
entire cities for days or weeks
show no sign of materializing
any time soon.
Today, renewables work
only with fossil-fuel backup.
Germany, which went all-in
for renewables, has seen
little reduction in carbon emissions,
and, according to our calculations,
at Germany’s rate of adding
clean energy relative to
gross domestic product,
it would take the world
more than a century
to decarbonize,
even if the country
wasn’t also retiring
nuclear plants early."
"But we actually have
proven models for rapid
decarbonization with
economic and energy growth:
France and Sweden.
They decarbonized their grids
decades ago and now emit
less than a tenth
of the world average
of carbon dioxide
per kilowatt-hour.
They remain among
the world’s most pleasant places
to live and enjoy much cheaper
electricity than Germany to boot."
Read more here:
The “greens” of today replaced the
“environmentalists” of the 1970’s.
The old “environmentalists”
were "trained" by the movie:
"The China Syndrome",
which started an irrational
hatred of nuclear power.
Maybe that's starting to change now ?
Believers in catastrophic climate
change must support rapid conversion
to nuclear energy, the only non-carbon
technology proven to work
24 / 7 / 365, unlike solar and wind.
Margaret Thatcher founded
the Hadley Centre in 1990.
She hated the coal miners’ union
and wanted justification for moving
from coal to nuclear as the main
source of electricity in the UK.
It was later determined
that nuclear power
was “too expensive”
for the UK.
North Sea Gas
was coming on stream,
cheap, and it used
much less labor
than coal mining.
But the Hadley Centre,
and then the CRU, assumed lives
of their own, and are now part of
the foundation of the government
climate junk science industry.
If you think CO2 is the main cause
of a warming climate, and a warming
climate is a problem, then the only
logical, feasible solution for generating
electricity is nuclear power.
Nuclear power, replacing coal power,
is the right answer today,
regardless of the effect CO2
has on the surface temperature.
But the fear of
atomic energy,
and CO2 alarmism,
both have the same cause:
Believing the worst
about what is not
understood.
Nuclear waste is not dangerous.
No one has been hurt by nuclear waste.