Rolls-Royce plans to build up to 15 mini nuclear reactors in Britain

[hunter]

8. We face some stark choices.

1. We can abandon the high energy industrial consumer economy many affluent people now enjoy.

Unfortunately an economy powered entirely by "renewable" energy might not be able to support seven and a half billion people.

(Gently reducing the human population is another problem... so far it seems the only way to do it is by empowering women and improving living standards.)

2. We can ignore global warming, continue to use fossil fuels, and hope for the best as the oceans rise, bad weather gets worse, and the familiar natural environment and world economy collapses around us.

3. Or we can build modern nuclear power plants and maintain the sorts of government institutions required to run them safely.

It's absurd to argue about "nuclear waste" when we are already dumping so much fossil fuel waste into our air and water, some of it radioactive, some of it containing toxins that have a half life of forever, and all of it releasing greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere.

The only way to quit fossil fuels is to quit fossil fuels.

There's enough fossil fuel in the ground to destroy the earth's environment as we know it. It doesn't matter how fast or how slow we burn it, it doesn't matter how many wind turbines or solar panels we build if we are using fossil fuels as "backup power" whenever the sun isn't shining or the wind isn't blowing. The end result of burning fossil fuels fast or slow is the same, and it is grim.