nuclear-news

 The new film “Pandora’s Promise” is a love song to nuclear power that claims to be a documentary, but like all good propaganda it omits key parts of the story, overstates the positives and underplays the negatives.

Built around the (false) proposition that improved quality of life requires commensurate growth in energy use (a recurring visual theme is a globe that glows brighter and brighter), the movie presents nuclear power as the only plausible solution to global warming.

No American utility today would consider building a new nuclear power plant without massive government support. Of 29 power plants on the drawing boards in 2009, only a handful are going forward, with government help, and even those are experiencing delays and cost overruns.

No major U.S. environmental group endorses nuclear power as a solution to climate change caused by fossil fuels, but this movie lionizes environmental activists who have become nuclear power enthusiasts, led by Michael Shellenberger and Stewart Brand. Shellenberger notes in the film that he at one time worked for NRDC and other major environmental groups in a consulting role. Their narratives are juxtaposed against unflattering, decades-old clips of veteran anti-nuclear activists like Helen Caldicott, Jane Fonda and Ralph Nader, suggesting that being pro-nuke is modern and hip……..

James Hansen certainly would not agree, however, with the film’s curt dismissal of the potential contributions of energy efficiency and renewable energy resources to meeting global energy needs….

Dismissing facts

Meanwhile, the movie contends that anti-nuclear activists have grossly overstated radiation risks, even as it overlooks scientific findings from, for example, the World Health Organization on actual impacts of radiation releases.

The film also dismisses energy efficiency in light of the allegedly inherent energy intensity of modern life, perpetuating the decade-old urban myth that a smartphone uses as much electricity as a refrigerator. (Repeated demonstrations show that if you take everything into account, a smartphone and the cloud data it uses only represent 15-20% as much electricity as an average refrigerator.)………http://edition.cnn.com/2013/11/06/opinion/pandora-nuclear-energy-opinion-cavanagh-cochran/