nuclear-news

Coal and nuclear – in it together promoting global warming. Theme for April 16

It’s really hard to estimate the full carbon footprint of the nuclear industry . Greenhouse gases are emitted in all stages of the lifecycle of a nuclear reactor: construction, operation, fuel production, dismantling and waste disposal. Leaving out any of these five stages will bias estimates towards lower values. The last two contributions, dismantling and waste disposal are particularly difficult to estimate. Not many commercial reactors have been fully decommissioned.

The ever repeated claim that nuclear power is emissions-free is simply not true. 

Without subsidies for coal and nuclear The free market would choose the path to the most cost effective and cleanest sources of energy which would include wind, solar, small-scale hydro, geothermal, energy efficiency, tidal, and certainly not nuclear or “clean coal.”

The fossil fuel and nuclear industries are in this public deception together. Indeed, nuclear power is in itself a fossil fuel industry, depending on mining uranium (or thorium, which is then converted to uranium).  The coal industry is confident of continuing for several decades, and then handing over to the nuclear industry, as coal runs out. The nuclear industry is happy about this, because it takes decades to get reactors set up and running.

Where these two toxic industries are also in agreement is in the aim to slow down, preferable stifle, the development of clean, and cheaper renewable energy sources, especially wind and solar power.

They also like the scenario promoted in the nuclear advertising film “Pandora’s Promise”  – that is the endless growth of energy use. Coal and nuclear advocates do not like the idea of energy efficiency, energy conservation.

March 22, 2016 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Christina's themes