Today we are pleased to publish our first guest post on GreenWorld. It is a major contribution to the debate on nuclear power and climate change that has arisen since the November 3, 2013 publication of a letter from four esteemed climate scientists urging environmentalists to reconsider our opposition to nuclear power as a strategy for addressing climate change. It is a letter to these pro-nuclear climate scientists from three Japanese scientists and a well-known former diplomat–Japan’s former Ambassador for the UN climate change negotiations–and is posted here with their permission. Your comments on this–and everything published on GreenWorld–are welcome. You can comment at the bottom of each article posted here.
Michael Mariotte
February 5, 2014Reply to the letter from Dr. Hansen and others
Nuclear Power is not the Answer to
Climate Change MitigationJanuary 31, 2014 (ver.2)
Jusen ASUKA, Professor, Tohoku University*
Seung-Joon PARK, Associate Professor, Kwansei Gakuin University
Mutsuyoshi NISHIMURA, Former ambassador for the United Nations climate change negotiations
Toru MOROTOMI, Professor, Kyoto University
Dear Doctors Caldeira, Emanuel, Hansen and Wigley,
Please allow us to introduce ourselves as Japanese academic researchers working on the studies and policy recommendations for the mitigation of climate change issues from economic and political perspectives. We are writing this letter in response to your letter “To those influencing environmental policy but opposed to nuclear power” (Caldeira et al., 2013).
[…]
In the following pages, we will like to point out what we consider the risks of nuclear power generation, its costs and new types of reactors, as well as the potential for further climate change measures without relying on nuclear power, while also introducing the current situation in Japan. We sincerely hope that this information will be helpful to you as you continue to further your research work for climate change measures.
Contents:
1. Probability of nuclear accidents
2. Comparison of the number of fatalities
3. Cost of nuclear power generation
4. The worst-case scenario – one that Japan was able to avoid
5. Introduction of nuclear power generation with coal power generation
6. Role of a new type of reactor
7. Potentials of achieving the Two degrees C target without nuclear power
8. Conclusion: Policies without “Russian Roulette”
Read more at Guest Post: nuclear power is not the answer to climate change mitigation
