From: Issue 34 Categories: Energy/Tech
Climate Capitalism: The Nuclear Dilemma
In Light of Japan, is it time to bury Nuclear forever?
Amongst those of us in the climate strategy world there has been an ongoing debate about the potential role of nuclear energy as a transition technology until we can truly get to ubiquitous renewable energy. Of course environmentalists have largely spoken out against nuclear for a long time. Greenpeace, for example, has an entire campaign against nuclear energy: “Greenpeace has always fought – and will continue to fight – vigorously against nuclear power because it is an unacceptable risk to the environment and to humanity. The only solution is to halt the expansion of all nuclear power, and for the shutdown of existing plants.”
However, within the climate capitalism movement, and the scientific community, the jury has still been out about what role, if any, nuclear should play in the energy mix. The Nuclear Energy Institute has a whole list of environmental benefits of nuclear energy, not the least of which is its nearly carbon-neutral status. You must be thinking, well, that is the Nuclear Energy Institute, this must be greenwashing.
What if I were to tell you that some of the most credible and famous climate scientists in the world, have also argued for nuclear to be part of the energy mix? Dr. Andrew Weaver, a long-standing leader of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is in favor of nuclear. In an interview from 2008, Dr. Weaver commented: “And I actually put nuclear power as–not a renewable but certainly as an interim energy source that I think we should be looking at very seriously because the emissions of carbon are zero and what we do is we have a storage problem. But that’s a local problem that we have to contain in our backyard and we’re not relying on someone else to deal with our problem.”
Probably the most famous climate scientist, Dr. James Hansen, is also a strong advocate for nuclear power. Rather surprisingly, the climate activist George Monbiot has also come to appreciate the role of nuclear power in the transition to renewables.
