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Nuclear industry a greenhouse gas emitter

The nuclear industry’s oft-touted claims of a “nuclear renaissance” were never real, …. “Now that claim is absolutely dead unless governments want to foot the entire bill. 

“Fukushima will have a bigger impact on the nuclear industry than Chernobyl,” …

The Nuclear Cost Shell Game, By Stephen Leahy, UXBRIDGE, Canada, May 6, 2011 (IPS)“…….The argument that nuclear power is needed to combat climate change is also incorrect. Mining uranium and processing ore into fuel and building nuclear facilities results in considerable carbon emissions. When the full life cycles are compared, the carbon emissions of nuclear on a per-kilowatt-of-power-generated basis exceeds that of wind and is about the same as solar, according to a 2008 study by the Centre for Integrated Sustainability Analysis at the University of Sydney, Australia.

“The energy solutions needed to combat climate change have to be able to be deployed quickly and at a low cost. Nuclear energy is just the opposite,” said Schneider.

The skyrocketing costs of nuclear compared with the steady decline in costs of alternative energy has resulted in world alternative energy production topping global nuclear installed capacity for the first time in history in 2010. Total investment in renewable energy technologies was estimated at 243 billion dollars last year, according to a new study, “World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2010-2011“.

Generating energy from wind turbines at sea would be cheaper than building new nuclear power plants, said Connie Hedegaard, the European Union climate change commissioner, last week.
While the global financial sector invests heavily in renewable, it will not invest in nuclear without generous government-backed loan guarantees, said Schneider. Areva, the world’s leading nuclear energy company and which is owned by the French government, lost more than 600 million dollars last year, he said.

The nuclear industry’s oft-touted claims of a “nuclear renaissance” were never real, added Schneider. “Now that claim is absolutely dead unless governments want to foot the entire bill.

“Fukushima will have a bigger impact on the nuclear industry than Chernobyl,” he predicted.

The Nuclear Cost Shell Game – IPS ipsnews.net

May 8, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, climate change