The choice between economic growth and the environment is a false one. There has to be rapid economic growth across the world, and the environment has to be kept clean. A clean environment is central to the idea of a higher standard of living, that's why.
But rapid economic growth means more energy consumption. And when people get richer, they want to buy and drive cars. Can't blame them. This will happen across the world.
Global warming is a serious problem, more serious than terrorism. Don't listen to the Bushies. They are dumb and wrong.
The world needs to wean itself away from fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are a disaster happening, a disaster in the making.
Of all the alternatives, nuclear energy is the best.
But there are serious problems associated with it. First, there is the security issue. There is that stuntman in North Korea. Iran might or might not be going for nuclear weapons, but it sure is going for nuclear energy.
The long term goal has to be a toal elimination of all nuclear weapons. The short term goal has to be nonproliferation. Irresponsible states having them are bad enough. You can't even imagine what if Al Qaeda types were to use dirty bombs in some cities. 9/11 will look like a picnic in comparison.
The safety concerns are very real. And if they are not addressed, the arguments for elaborate uses of nuclear energy get weakened.
Nuclear safety is like global warming: no one country can do it. And so you need a strong and just global mechanism that makes sure the safety concerns are duly met.
It is not possible to imagine there not showing up hundreds of millions of new cars over the decades on the roads of what today are poor countries. But it is possible to imagine them all being electric cars. No noise, no smoke. That would be some fancy car. You don't go to gas stations. You go to stations to recharge your car batteries.
White countries use nuclear energy. 20% of the electricity in the US, 80% in France is generated that way. It really is nuclear apartheid to get paranoid when poor countries see the nuclear energy as their best way forward. Ensure safety, but do not block the technology.
The US could itself follow the France example and move towards generating 80% of its electricity through nuclear. That would be a good idea.
In the 21st century, the basic human needs are as follows: food, water, broadband, electricity.
On The Web
Nuclear Energy is the most certain future source
NEI - The Nuclear Energy Institute
Nuclear power - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Nuclear energy is produced when a fissile material, such as uranium-235 (235U), is concentrated such that nuclear fission takes place in a controlled chain reaction and creates heat — which is used to boil water, produce steam, and drive a steam turbine. The turbine can be used for mechanical work and also to generate electricity....... provides 7% of the world's energy and 15.7%[1] source. Critics, including most major of the world's electricity. The United States produces the most nuclear energy, with nuclear power providing 20% of the electricity it consumes, while France produces the highest percentage of its energy from nuclear reactors—80% as of 2006. ......... The use of nuclear power is controversial because of the problem of storing radioactive waste for indefinite periods, the potential for possibly severe radioactive contamination by accident or sabotage, and the possibility that its use in some countries could lead to the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Proponents believe that these risks are small and can be further reduced by the technology in the new reactors. They further claim that the safety record is already good when compared to other fossil-fuel plants, that it releases much less radioactive waste than coal power, and that nuclear power is a sustainable energyenvironmental groups believe nuclear power is an uneconomic, unsound and potentially dangerous energy source, especially compared to renewable energy, and dispute whether the costs and risks can be reduced through new technology. ............ Nuclear power produces spent fuel, a unique solid waste problem. Highly radioactive spent fuel needs to be handled with great care and forethought due to the long half-lives of the radioactive isotopes in the waste. In fact, fresh spent fuel is so radioactive that less than a minute's exposure to it will cause death. However, spent nuclear fuel becomes less radioactive over time. After 40 years, the radiation flux is 99.9% lower than it was the moment the reactor was last shut off, although still dangerously radioactive. ....... the waste must be segregated from the environment for at least several hundred years, and therefore this is properly categorized as a long-term problem. There are, however, chemical plants which also produce hazardous waste staying in the environment for hundreds of years. ...... A large nuclear reactor produces 3 cubic metres (25-30 tonnes) of spent fuel each year. As of 2003, the United States had accumulated about 49,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel from nuclear reactors. Unlike other countries, U.S. policy forbids recycling of used fuel and it is all treated as waste. After 10,000 years of radioactive decay, according to United States Environmental Protection Agency standards, the spent nuclear fuel will no longer pose a threat to public health and safety. ....... Underground storage at Yucca Mountain in U.S. has been proposed as permanent storage. ....... nuclear power produces far less waste material than fossil-fuel based power plants. Coal-burning plants are particularly noted for producing large amounts of radioactive ash due to concentrating naturally occurring radioactive material in the coal. ...... Both nuclear reprocessing and fast breeder reactors can reduce the amounts of waste and increase the amount of energy gained per fuel unit. Subcritical reactors or fusion reactors could greatly reduce the time the waste has to be stored ....... It has been argued that the best solution for the nuclear waste is above ground temporary storage since technology is rapidly changing. The current waste may well become valuable fuel in the future, particularly if it is not reprocessed, as in the U.S. ..... In countries with nuclear power, radioactive wastes comprise less than 1% of total industrial toxic wastes, which remain hazardous indefinitely unless it decomposes or is treated so that it is less toxic or non-toxic.
Nuclear energy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Energy Story - Chapter 13: Nuclear Energy - Fission and Fusion
Howstuffworks "How Nuclear Power Works"
Nuclear Power and Waste Full Coverage on Yahoo! News
Going Nuclear In the early 1970s when I helped found Greenpeace, I believed that nuclear energy was synonymous with nuclear holocaust ...... Thirty years on, my views have changed ..... nuclear energy may just be the energy source that can save our planet from another possible disaster: catastrophic climate change. ...... More than 600 coal-fired electric plants in the United States produce 36 percent of U.S. emissions -- or nearly 10 percent of global emissions -- of CO2 ........ Three Mile Island was in fact a success story: The concrete containment structure did just what it was designed to do -- prevent radiation from escaping into the environment ...... 103 nuclear reactors quietly delivering just 20 percent of America's electricity ........ Eighty percent of the people living within 10 miles of these plants approve of them (that's not including the nuclear workers). ....... I am not alone among seasoned environmental activists in changing my mind on this subject. British atmospheric scientist James Lovelock, father of the Gaia theory, believes that nuclear energy is the only way to avoid catastrophic climate change. ........ the environmental movement must embrace nuclear energy to wean ourselves from fossil fuels. ...... hydroelectric resources are built pretty much to capacity ..... In 2004, the average cost of producing nuclear energy in the United States was less than two cents per kilowatt-hour, comparable with coal and hydroelectric ...... Chernobyl was an accident waiting to happen. This early model of Soviet reactor had no containment vessel, was an inherently bad design and its operators literally blew it up. The multi-agency U.N. Chernobyl Forum reported last year that 56 deaths could be directly attributed to the accident, most of those from radiation or burns suffered while fighting the fire. Tragic as those deaths were, they pale in comparison to the more than 5,000 coal-mining deaths that occur worldwide every year. No one has died of a radiation-related accident in the history of the U.S. civilian nuclear reactor program. ...... Within 40 years, used fuel has less than one-thousandth of the radioactivity it had when it was removed from the reactor. And it is incorrect to call it waste, because 95 percent of the potential energy is still contained in the used fuel after the first cycle. ...... The six-feet-thick reinforced concrete containment vessel protects the contents from the outside as well as the inside. And even if a jumbo jet did crash into a reactor and breach the containment, the reactor would not explode. There are many types of facilities that are far more vulnerable, including liquid natural gas plants, chemical plants and numerous political targets. ....... Nuclear fuel can be diverted to make nuclear weapons. This is the most serious issue associated with nuclear energy and the most difficult to address ........ Over the past 20 years, one of the simplest tools -- the machete -- has been used to kill more than a million people in Africa, far more than were killed in the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombings combined. What are car bombs made of? Diesel oil, fertilizer and cars. ....... new technologies such as the reprocessing system recently introduced in Japan (in which the plutonium is never separated from the uranium) can make it much more difficult for terrorists or rogue states to use civilian materials to manufacture weapons. ....... new technologies such as the reprocessing system recently introduced in Japan (in which the plutonium is never separated from the uranium) can make it much more difficult for terrorists or rogue states to use civilian materials to manufacture weapons. ..... the 103 nuclear plants operating in the United States effectively avoid the release of 700 million tons of CO2emissions annually -- the equivalent of the exhaust from more than 100 million automobiles. Imagine if the ratio of coal to nuclear were reversed so that only 20 percent of our electricity was generated from coal and 60 percent from nuclear.
DOE - Office of Nuclear Energy
digg - European Leader Urges Return to Nuclear Energy
In The News
UN nuclear chief calls for new plan for nuclear energy use to ... International Herald Tribune, France adopt a broad new plan for the use of nuclear energy to address mounting concerns about the further spread of sensitive technology ...... rising global demand for energy has made nuclear power a more attractive option ..... "the time has come to think of a new framework for the use of nuclear energy." ....... Nuclear power is increasingly being seen as an attractive energy supply especially in poorer nations, he said, noting that 16 or the 28 new reactors currently under construction are in developing countries....... innovative nuclear technology that is inherently safe, proliferation resistant and more economical ...... the new framework should require all countries to adopt comprehensive safeguards and adhere to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty's additional protocol which allows unannounced inspections. It should also include rapid progress toward nuclear disarmament, "a robust international security regime and an effective and universal nuclear safety regime" ..... Iran .. wants all nuclear weapons eliminated ......... during the past year the IAEA conducted a nuclear security training course for 88 countries, supplied detection and monitoring equipment, and bought equipment to improve the security of nuclear power plants and other locations with highly radioactive material. ....... the number of illicit trafficking incidents — more than 100 per year for the past three years — "demonstrates a persistent problem with trafficking, thefts, losses and other unauthorized activities involving nuclear or radioactive material." ...... 93 states are now participating in the IAEA's Illicit Trafficking Database which is providing "insight into trends, risks, and trafficking methods and routes."
UN Chief Asks New Uses for Atom Energy
EU chief supports usage of nuclear energy to tackle global warming Blogger News Network the President of the European Commission, has called for wider usage of nuclear energy in EU member states, to cut greenhouse gas emissions and to tackle the effects of global warming and climate change. .... the objective of the new measures is to speed up the transformation of Europe to a low carbon economy
EU must ’redraw energy sector’
Egypt seeks nuclear energy United Press International
Egypt turns to Russia, China over nuclear energy Middle East Times, Egypt
Belgium ready to consider India's nuclear energy ques India eNews.com, India
Belgium ready to consider India's nuclear energy quest
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