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6 Reasons Why Nuclear Power Can’t Save Us | Environment | AlterNet

6 Reasons Why Nuclear Power Can’t Save Us
AlterNet by Rob Hopkins, Chelsea Green Publishing.
 January 3, 2009. A new book shows that it is not just the cost of nuke plants and their deadly waste that is the energy source’s only problems. The following is an excerpt from The Transition Handbook: From oil dependency to local resilience by Rob Hopkins, founder of the Transition movement. It has been adapted for the web.

1. Length of time to come on stream

Commissioning and building new plants is a time-consuming business (at least twenty years), so they would have little or no impact on cutting emissions over the next twenty years, nor build any resilience in the face of peak oil.

2. Insurance

The insurance industry refuses to underwrite nuclear power, a gap it looks like the government will have to fill, resulting in a huge invisible subsidy for nuclear power.

3. Waste

Nuclear waste is a huge problem. The UK alone has 10,000 tons of nuclear waste, a pile which will increase 25-fold when the existing plants are decommissioned, with no solution in sight 4. Cost 5. Peak Uranium

6. Carbon Emissions

Nuclear is often said to be a carbon-free way of generating electricity. While that may be true for the actual generation, it is not when the entire process is looked at. The mining, processing, enrichment, treatment and disposal all have significant impacts,

6 Reasons Why Nuclear Power Can’t Save Us | Environment | AlterNet

Tags: energy

January 4, 2009 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized