nuclear-news

Is Nuclear Energy the Solution?

BREAKING NEWS: PARIS CLIMATE SUMMIT UNDERWAY, Franciscan Associates, THE CREATION CARE NEWSLETTER December, 2015  December 1, 2015 

…….Is Nuclear Energy the Solution?

{The short piece below was a reply by Brian Williams to an article in the New York Times (Nov. 28) that nuclear energy is the key to bridge the gap between fossil fuels and renewables.}
Flawed arguments in every possible way! First off, it’s impossible to build (and fuel!) enough nuclear plants (400 or so at a bare minimum) to replace fossil fuel generated power in the time frame needed to avert catastrophic global warming. This alone rules out nuclear energy as a viable climate solution.
The argument that nuclear power is somehow carbon free is bogus too: mining uranium is certainly not “carbon free” and enriching it is the most energy intensive industrial process around. The energy expended in both these steps is generally fossil fuel energy. Manufacturing the concrete and steel for nuclear plants also generates large amounts of CO2.

Then we have to safely store the high level wastes for far longer than any human civilization has existed thus far, cooling it in the bargain for the first few centuries. How can the author blithely assure us we’ll be able to do this without a hitch, and without using vast amounts of energy? To top it off, the richest uranium ores have pretty much been found already and mined out. We are left with lower concentration ores that require even more energy and environmental degradation to mine and refine. Nuclear power is most definitely not “carbon free”!….https://franciscanassociates.wordpress.com/

December 2, 2015 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | general