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Nuclear is not “the answer”

Nuclear is not the answerL slowing down in a sped-up world
Science blogs Rebecca Solnit 9 Sept 09
“………….Well, the first problem is that they still think like big science–that there is “the answer.” In fact, there are hundreds of little answers that don’t include nuclear, including scaling back our consumption and travel and building better and using a lot of the elegant new engineering to do everything more efficiently and actually doing something about all the renewable energy sources that are out there–maybe having a new renewable/sustainable energy project like the Manhattan Project or race to the moon if they want some big-science action.

A lot of what people are trying to hang on to when they embrace nukes is the opportunity to do things pretty much the way they’ve always done them: sloppily, wastefully. Nukes are the last best chance of not changing. Or so they think. My friend Chip Ward–a brilliant, uproarious writer and antinuclear/environmental activist in Utah–points out that, presuming we’re looking for “the answer,” nuclear power isn’t it.

It takes insane amounts of carbon-producing endeavor to mine and refine the uranium ore, build the power plants, and if we started tomorrow they wouldn’t be online anywhere soon enough to make a difference in the narrow window we’ve got. So even in carbon-emissions terms and the race to stop screwing up the climate, they’re not the answer.

Nuclear is not “the answer”; slowing down in a sped-up culture is an act of resistance; and more from Rebecca Solnit : The World’s Fair

September 9, 2009 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 1, 2 WORLD, climate change, ENERGY | antinuclear, nuclear, renewables