Nuclear Now?

This is probably the best argument I've read for Nuke power. "We now know that the risks of splitting atoms pale beside the dreadful toll exacted by fossil fuels. Radiation containment, waste disposal, and nuclear weapons proliferation are manageable problems in a way that global warming is not. Unlike the usual green alternatives - water, wind, solar, and biomass - nuclear energy is here, now, in industrial quantities. Sure, nuke plants are expensive to build - upward of $2 billion apiece - but they start to look cheap when you factor in the true cost to people and the planet of burning fossil fuels. And nuclear is our best hope for cleanly and efficiently generating hydrogen, which would end our other ugly hydrocarbon addiction - dependence on gasoline and diesel for transport."



The more detailed argument however looks less convincing with a divide-and-rule methodology which leaves one with the implied impression that the alternative is a single industrial scale renewable energy source rather then a patchwork of decentralised sources and missing facts like the biggest source of energy outside of carbon is currently hydro [I couldn't believe it either!]. The costings too seem over-optimistic -externalities are mentioned but not the chief one that applies to such a hike in nuke generation -safe disposal and containment over thousands of years. It only gets a look in because of externalities and subsidy. In the article 'safe storage' does not take in the externalities of security from terrorist 'recycling', for example. And it's all very well saying that we need the solution now, but the fact is that nuclear plants have to be financed and built and that takes time -quite alot of time actually and we have the reneable solutions to hand now already being cranked out and used .... admittedly not big time yet but if they could only get the kind of support that government has put into nuke options then that would be a different story perhaps.



Notwithstanding my difficulties I think that this is an article worth reading and thinking further about. After all my difficulties haven;t all been tested, they are my concerns but I don't know how well founded they all are.



Wired 13.02: Nuclear Now!: