stardust, deathwatch
Tuesday, January 29th, 2008I’ve found myself swayed at times by arguments that nuclear power is a reasonable if not necessary stop-gap solution for the world’s energy and climate problems. In particular, James Lovelock’s arguments carry weight with me, as he’s the guy who originated the Gaia hypothesis. (His books are a good read, too.)
I recall him writing to defuse the mid-century vilification of radioactivity. Nuclear waste and radiation in general is a problem for humans, but the lower levels of our current ecosystem (bacteria, plants, insects, fish, etc) can cope with it pretty well. Radiation, after all, is not some sterilizing alien power; it’s quite natural. It “flooded the very womb of life” on this planet, back in the day …
He sees nuclear power as the only currently available and feasible alternative to fossil fuel, saying “there is no chance that the renewables, wind, tide and water power can provide enough energy and in time…. By all means, let us use the small input from renewables sensibly, but only one immediately available source does not cause global warming and that is nuclear energy.”
Exactly the opposite is claimed by this list of strikes against nuclear power from Co-Op America. They say that we would have to scale up from our current 400 worldwide operating nuclear plants to around 17,000 plants to “begin making a dent in climate change.” And there isn’t time for that: “It simply isn’t possible to build 17,000 – or 2,500 or 17 for that matter – in ten years.”
Ten years sounds like an optimistic time frame for any solution at the rate we’re going. But 17,000 is a pretty big number. Co-Op America doesn’t offer a source for it. So I don’t know. Who’s right?
I still am kind of partial to the idea of buying time by injecting ash into the air, simulating a big volcanic eruption.