nuclear-news

With climate talks ongoing in Paris, we have another “plea” from various climate scientists for action. Most notably a claim by James Hansen, Kerry Emanuel, Ken Caldeira and Tom Wigley (the gang of four as I will henceforth call them) for more nuclear power. Unfortunately, like many nuclear energy supporters they merely succeed in showing how naive and ill-informed they are regarding the topic. It does worry me when I hear such things from eminent climatologists, as it does suggest somewhat faulty logic on their part, something which we are fortunate no deniers have thought to point out.

The gang of 4 call for 61 reactors per year for the next 35 years to replace fossil fuels for electricity generation and 115 to replace all fossil fuel consumption. They don’t define what a reactor is, but let’s assume 1 GW. By contrast, something I discussed in a…