Tokyo Electric Power Co. workers in heavily contaminated work environment of Fukushima, the site of the triple reactor meltdowns that began March 11, 2011. Tepco estimates it will take 40 years to cover up the catastrophe with enough malarky, bologna, snake oil and pixie dust to prove nuclear power is safe

Novelist Gwyneth Cravens lectured at St. Scholastica last week, making the case for nuclear power as a way to fight climate change. With five novels under her belt, Cravens is the author of “Power to Save the World: The Truth About Nuclear Energy” (2007), another work of fiction that argues nuclear power is safe and a preventative of climate chaos.

Cravens’ assertion that nuclear power can help by cutting carbon emissions is specious, since it flatly ignores the CO2 produced by uranium mining, milling and transport; the billions of gallons of cooling water returned hot to rivers, lakes and seas; the carbon fuels burned during reactor construction, decommissioning, waste management and transportation; and the ozone-depleting CFCs emitted from uranium fuel fabrication factories in Kentucky and Tennessee (the only industry to win an exemption from the CFC ban). The worst failing of Cravens’ fantasy is that dozens of think tanks and energy analysts have demonstrated mathematical impossibility of nuclear power expanding fast enough to fight the climate crisis, and that investing in reactors steals resources from safer and cheaper systems that go on line faster.

PETER BRADFORD: In “Why a Future for the Nuclear Industry Is Risky,” this former Nuclear Regulatory Commission member declares, “the claims that nuclear power is a necessary energy source for displacing greenhouse gasses haven’t convinced investors that new nuclear power reactors will be safe and profitable investments.” Bradford’s list of reasons to reject nuclear power is startling: investing in new nuclear reactors remains very risky; Wall Street has expressed serious concerns; nuclear power reactors are stated terrorist targets; nuclear power will not reduce foreign energy dependence [most uranium comes from Kazakhstan, Canada, and Australia]; permanent storage of high-level waste remains unresolved; global warming increases the risks of operating reactors vulnerable to heated water unable to cool the core.

MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY: A 2003 Massachusetts Institute of Technology study, The Future of Nuclear Power, noted that a “global growth scenario” of a base load of 1,000 gigawatts of installed capacity around the world by 2050, “would require a new 1,000 megawatt reactor to come on-line somewhere in the world every 15 days on average between 2010 and 2050.” (Brice Smith, “Insurmountable Risks: The Dangers of Using Nuclear Power to Combat Global Climate Change,” 2006, pp. 5-10.)
 
GREENPEACE: Greenpeace International’s “Nuclear Power Undermining Action on Climate Change” (Dec. 2007), concludes not only that new reactor construction cannot be done soon enough to help, but that money devoted to nuclear power “deprives real climate solutions of funding.” Greenpeace found that, “Even if today’s currently installed nuclear capacity was doubled; it would lead to reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions of less than 5 percent and would require one new large reactor to come on-line every two weeks until 2030. An impossible task...” In stark contrast, “Proven renewable energy techniques are available now, can be constructed and brought on-line quickly and provide immediate cuts in greenhouse gases.”

There is an investment choice to be made. “The investment required to double global nuclear capacity, reducing greenhouse gas emissions by less than 5 percent, would be between two and three trillion dollars.” Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute calculates, “Each dollar invested in electric efficiency displaces nearly seven times as much carbon dioxide as a dollar invested in nuclear power, without any nasty side effects.” ()

INSTITUTE FOR ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH (IEER): Physicist Arjun Makhijani, IEER’s president and author of  “Carbon Free and Nuclear Free: A Roadmap for U.S. Energy Policy,” says, “A technological revolution has been brewing in the last few years, so it won’t cost an arm and a leg to eliminate both CO2 emissions and nuclear power.”
“What is really innovative about this ‘Roadmap’ is that it combines technologies to show how to create a reliable electricity and energy system entirely from renewable sources of energy,” said Dr. Hisham Zerriffi, an expert on electricity grids at the University of British Columbia.
According to the Roadmap, North Dakota, Texas, Kansas, South Dakota, Montana and Nebraska each has wind energy potential greater than the electricity produced by all 103 U.S. commercial nuclear power reactors. The Roadmap recommends a “hard cap” on CO2 emissions by large fossil fuel users (more than 100 billion Btu per year). “The cap would be reduced each year until it reaches zero in 30 to 50 years. There would be no free emissions allowances, no international trade of allowances, and no offsets that would allow corporations to emit CO2 by investing in outside projects to reduce emissions. The emissions of smaller users would be reduced by efficiency standards for appliances, cars, homes and commercial buildings.” (Arjun Makhijani, “Carbon-Free and Nuclear-Free, June 2007. See 23-page summary at )

PHYSICIANS FOR SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY: In “Dirty, Dangerous & Expensive, The Truth About Nuclear Power” (Sept. 2006), the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize-winning PSR, says, “Given the urgent need to begin reducing greenhouse gas emissions as quickly as possible, the tremendously long lead times required for the design, permitting and construction of nuclear reactors renders nuclear power an ineffective option for addressing global warming. ... Were an accident to occur [like the July 16, 2007 Japanese earthquake that shutdown three reactors, or the 2011 triple meltdown at Fukushima], it is likely that any planned nuclear power plants would be scrapped....  When the very serious risk of accidents, proliferation, terrorism and nuclear war are considered, it is clear that investment in nuclear power as a climate change solution is not only misguided but also highly dangerous.”

OXFORD RESEARCH GROUP (ORG): In their June 2007 report “Too Hot to Handle: The Future of Civil Nuclear Power,” the London-based think tank ORG analyzed the environmental and security risks of relying on nuclear power. The study concludes that, “For the nuclear weapons proliferation and nuclear terrorism risks to be worth taking, nuclear power must be able to achieve energy security and a reduction in global CO2 emissions more effectively, efficiently, economically, and quickly than any other energy source. There is little evidence to support the claim that it can.”      

Member of Parliament David Howarth notes in the study’s foreward that, in Britain, “the potential for renewable power vastly exceeds current electricity consumption.” Like other analysts, ORG noted the impossibility of building enough reactors soon enough to reduce greenhouse emissions. After considering population growth and the parallel growth in electricity demand, the team found that “nearly four new reactors would have to begin construction each month from now until 2075” around the world. The authors point out that “In the UK it is expected to take at least 17 years from licensing to generating electricity.” Furthermore, “Between 1977 and 1993, 58 nuclear power reactors came into operation at an average of 3.4 reactors per year.” The study concludes, “A civil nuclear construction and supply program on this scale is a pipe dream.”