By Harvey Wasserman
Dr. James Hansen has repeatedly billed himself as an advocate of nuclear power.
Yet sometimes things are so far removed from reality as to not be what they appear to be.
Hansen published an article with three co-writers Thursday in The Guardian. It advocates nukes as a solution to global warming. All have impressive resumes in the fight to save the Earth. But their argument for nukes makes sense only as parody.
[…]
Right now less than 440 commercial reactors more or less operate worldwide, depending on how one counts those shut since Fukushima.Now multiply 115 new reactors a year from now until 2050. Can you do it with a straight face?
Team Hansen provides no calculations on the cost, size or reliability of these projected nukes.
We do hear about “next-generation nuclear power with a closed fuel cycle.”
But none exist today.
None could be designed, financed or built in time to save us from climate chaos. All would drain the on-going boom in wind and solar.
And, what about: Raw materials? Construction capacity? Siting? Regulation? (think China) Insurance? Ecological impacts? Heat emissions? Terror threats? (think ISIS) Decommissioning?
How about cooling water? Massive marine die-offs and ecological imbalance are standard wherever nukes operate. On a warming planet, is there really enough cold water to cool all these thermal monsters? Is creating these gargantuan quantities of waste heat really how we want to fight global warming? Where are the out-take pipes on solar panels and wind mills?[…]
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