NUCLEAR POWER IS STILL NOT SAFE AND THEY WANT MORE ??
Climate change warriors: It's time to go nuclear
updated 8:15 AM EST, Sun November 3, 2013
James Hansen says environmentalists and world leaders must accept nuclear power now to avoid catastrophic climate change.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Top enviro-scientists call on world leaders to embrace nuclear power
- Only nukes can make enough clean power to slow climate change, they say
- Nuclear energy is too expensive and risky, says Natural Resources Defense Council
- Scientist: Al Gore supports safer, better nuclear power, "but he won't come out and say that"
For more on the future of nuclear power as a possible solution for global climate change, watch CNN Films' presentation of "Pandora's Promise," Thursday, November 7, at 9 p.m. ET/PT.
(CNN) -- Four top environmental scientists raised the stakes Sunday in their fight to reverse climate change and save the planet.
Climate and energy scientists James Hansen, Ken Caldeira, Kerry Emanuel and Tom Wigley have released an open letter calling on world leaders to support development of safer nuclear power systems.
Wait -- pro-nuclear environmentalists? Isn't that an oxymoron? Apparently, not so much anymore.
Embracing nuclear is the
only way, the scientists believe, to reverse the looming threat of
climate change which they blame on fossil fuels. Depending who you ask,
they're either abandoning -- or leading -- traditional environmentalists
who for a half-century have rejected clean-burning nuclear power as too
expensive or too dangerous. Opponents cite disasters at Fukushima,
Chernobyl and Three Mile island.
Is nuclear power really that bad?
Chernobyl victims, 26 yrs after accident
Trying to decontaminate Fukushima
Living in limbo near Fukushima
2011: Photographer documents Chernobyl
The fear is that time is
running out. Without nuclear, the scientists believe global energy
consumption will overtake the planet's ability to reverse the buildup of
carbon dioxide pollution from burning oil, coal and other fossil fuels.
At risk, said Hansen, are disintegrating polar ice sheets and rising
sea levels which will threaten coastal regions.
The letter is among the scientists' strongest public statements backing nuclear power. It also comes as CNN plans to air "Pandora's Promise," a documentary about environmentalists and longtime nuclear opponents who've done complete 180s on nukes.
By releasing the letter,
the scientists are "putting their reputations on the line to do
something that the ultra-greens regard as treason," said Stanford University Nobel-winning physicist Burton Richter.
Nuclear power is
burgeoning in some parts of the world and shrinking in others. Asia is
embracing it -- except Japan -- which is still struggling to figure out
how to safely deal with the dangerously radioactive Fukushima nuclear
power plant.
The Japanese disaster left Germany so unnerved that they've chosen to phase out their 17 nuclear facilities by 2022.
"We've got four top guns
in the environmental movement telling [German Chancellor] Angela
Merkel, 'You're wrong to shut down nuclear,'" said Richter. "I think
that's a relatively big deal."
Are we witnessing the
birth of a mutiny within the environmental movement? Will typical
21st-century environmentalists eventually embrace the power of the atom?
A leading environmental group opposed to nuclear power says no.
"I don't think it's very significant that a few people have changed their minds about nuclear power," said Ralph Cavanagh of the Natural Resources Defense Council. Nuclear fuel may burn cleaner, the NRDC says, but comes with too many safety issues and too high of a price tag.
The letter admits
"today's nuclear plants are far from perfect." However, "... there is no
credible path to climate stabilization that does not include a
substantial role for nuclear power."
The four scientists say they have no connection to "Pandora's Promise,"
which blames resistance to nuclear energy on groundless fears rooted in
the Cold War, Chernobyl in 1986 and 1979's Three Mile Island.
Nuclear power is dying a slow death in the market place.
Ralph Cavanagh, Natural Resources Defense Council
Ralph Cavanagh, Natural Resources Defense Council
In the documentary,
which debuts on CNN Thursday at 9 p.m. ET/PT, climate change activist
and author Mark Lynas says he knew publicly supporting nuclear energy
would put his entire career at risk. "I'd have been much better just to
keep my mouth shut," he admits in the film. "But I couldn't do that."
Cavanagh said the "movie
attempts to establish the proposition that mainstream environmentalists
are pouring into nuclear advocacy today. They aren't. I've been in the
NRDC since 1979. I have a pretty good idea of where the mainstream
environmental groups are and have been. I've seen no movement."
Selling nuclear energy
to environmentalists is a tough pitch. Hansen acknowledged that many of
them won't easily buy into it. Parts of the community operate like "a
religion of sorts, which makes it very difficult," Hansen said. "They're
not all objectively looking at the pros and cons."
The NRDC hasn't rejected
nuclear power out of hand, Cavanagh said. It constantly evaluates
nuclear power and "everything else," he said. "I think that's our
obligation." Is it possible to be both an environmentalist and a
supporter of nuclear power? "You can be," Cavanagh said.
Hansen has been spreading his message to the community's top influencers.
He tells of a recent
meeting with Al Gore where he tried to sell the former vice president on
how advanced nuclear technology might stabilize climate change. Gore
invited two anti-nuclear advocates to the meeting, Hansen said, and by
the time it was all over, Gore was unmoved. "I mean, Al essentially
understands that we had better try to develop safer, better nuclear
power," said Hansen, "but he won't come out and say that."
Here's what Gore did say publicly about it during a recent Reddit "Ask Me Anything" chat:
nuclear energy "will continue to play a limited role, and IF the
ongoing [research and development] produces cheaper, safer, smaller
reactors, they may yet play a more significant role."
Decarbonizing
Among nuclear energy
supporters, France remains a hero nation. In the 1970s, it chose to
invest heavily in nuclear power creating a system that boasts some of
the cheapest energy and cleanest air on the planet.
Germany puts out about
18% of its power with nuclear. But with the upcoming nuke phase-out,
there are doubts about whether Germany can offset its nuclear output
with wind and other clean energy sources.
Michael Limburg, vice president of the European Institute for Climate and Energy, told CNN in September that the government's energy targets are "completely unfeasible."
"Of course, it's
possible to erect tens of thousands of windmills but only at an extreme
cost and waste of natural space," he said. "And still it would not be
able to deliver electricity when it is needed."
There are 65 commercially operating nuclear plants in the U.S., including 104 reactors.
Five new reactors are currently being built, in Georgia, South Carolina
and Tennessee. In the past year, utilities have permanently shut down
four others and plan to take a fifth out of service in 2014. At least
two other planned projects have been shelved.
"Nuclear power is dying a slow death in the market place, which is what matters in determining its future," said Cavanagh.
As an alternative, the NRDC is touting efficiency. Energy-saving technology is becoming so successful, according to a new NRDC report,
that efficiency has "significant potential to dramatically reduce power
plant emissions." Total U.S. energy use peaked in 2007 and has been
trending downward ever since, the NRDC says.
On the other hand,
scientists in "Pandora's Promise" claim energy consumption globally
could double by 2050 -- and perhaps triple or quadruple by 2100 -- as
growing nations like China, India and Brazil start to want more energy.
A United Nations report released last month
re-confirmed Hansen's fears. The study concluded that the planet is
heating up, the oceans are rising and there's more evidence that neither
development is natural.
Hansen, who was among
the initial wave of scientists warning about climate change in the
1980s, said Friday he fears most its "irreversible effects."
"Once we get to a certain point and the ice sheets start to disintegrate, then you can't stop it."
Then Hansen paused. "And we're getting very close to that point."
If we stay on the
current path, he said, "those are the consequences we'll be leaving to
our children. The best candidate to avoid that is nuclear power. It's
ready now. We need to take advantage of it."
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