Public
concerns about nuclear power have traditionally centered on two issues: the risk of widespread radioactive fallout from an accident and the hazards of nuclear waste.
What we can say for
sure about nuclear power is that it doesn't produce carbon dioxide, which is an important thing today.
The only people who still
talk about nuclear power are people who never did and never will have a clue about economic impacts.
Two facts that everyone should now
know about nuclear power are that it needs access to large volumes of water to cool the reactor and a supply of energy to move the water.
«This earthquake was something that was not foreseen by anybody, but it managed to change the way that people
thought about nuclear power rather dramatically,» said Shcherbakova, who also serves as director of the Master of Science in Energy Management program at UT Dallas.
Books that tell the
truth about nuclear power that are easy enough for anybody to read: «Power to Save the World; The Truth About Nuclear Energy» by Gwyneth Cravens, 2007 «Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy» by B. Comby.
«I recognize the increased public
fear about nuclear power,» IEA chief Nobuo Tanaka, who is Japanese, told a news conference in Oslo.
There has been little change in views
about nuclear power over this time; 45 % favor promoting the increased use of nuclear power now, virtually unchanged from 2006 when 44 % supported this.
In October, the Saudis sent a request for information to the U.S., France, South Korea, Russia and China — the strongest signal yet that they're
serious about nuclear power.
The governor has a different
attitude about nuclear power plants downstate, where he is trying to close the Indian Point nuclear power plant near his home in Westchester.
The Conservatives were initially
sceptical about nuclear power under David Cameron's leadership but have fallen broadly into line with the previous Labour government's policy of replacing Britain's ageing nuclear power plants with a new generation of privately built reactors.
See Science Agenda: Coming Clean about Nuclear Power
So although it may seem odd in the 21st century to
read about nuclear power in the funny pages, it was perhaps inevitable during an age when both were still nascent curiosities.
Ample supplies, robust emerging markets and
uncertainty about nuclear power all point to a prominent role for gas in global energy mix; prospect that natural gas, after decades of volatility and political tensions related to limited supplies, is entering a «golden age.»
Greg Dalton: Michael Shellenberger, movies such as the China Syndrome, starring Jack Lemmon and Jane Fonda and Silkwood, starring Cher and Meryl Streep, did more to shape public
perception about nuclear power than most environmental groups?
I've been thinking about what Monbiot has to
say about nuclear power, and how it interacts, so to speak, with the climate issue.
For those of us who
learned about nuclear power in school but nothing about wind turbines, here's a simple explanation of how wind turbines work, with a brief history of the industry.
Mark Lynas, whose Six Degrees (Amazon UK US) has been a great success, had a piece in the New Statesman last
week about nuclear power.