"The battle of the energy titans comes down to one great contest: nuclear vs. coal." [View all]

[wtmusic]

From Mark Lynas's The God Species: Saving the Planet in the Age of Humans

[a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/god-species-mark-lynas/1100089065?ean=9781426208911&itm=1&usri=the+god+species"][div style="float: left; margin: 0 8px 4px 0;"][/a]"...As this book has shown renewables are a crucial part of our tool kit but not enough on their own. The battle of the energy titans comes down to one great contest: nuclear vs. coal. And by rejecting nuclear over past decades Greens have unwittingly kept the door open for the most polluting energy source of all. For example, several planned reactors in the United States, after being stridently opposed by Greens in the 1970s and 1980s, became coal stations instead. In Austria, after anti-nuclear activisits won a nationwide referendum in 1978, a whole country turned from nuclear to coal–and an entire completed nuclear power station was pointlessly mothballed right after being built.

An interesting 'what if?' exercise arises. What might be the quantity of carbon dioxide emitted over the last few decades from fossil-fueled power plants as an accidental by-product of anti-nuclear campaigning? In Austria, for example, six nuclear stations were proposed, and none were eventually used. In the U.S., at least 19 nuclear plants were canceled after being proposed–mainly due to the changing tide of public opinion brought on by the rise of the Greens. What if the nuclear build rate of the 60s and 70s had continued until today, and all these proposed plants had been welcomed by the rising environmental movement? There can of course be no definitive answer to such a question, but if we say that 150 additional plants would by now have been running for 20 years, these woul have avoided the emission of 18 billion tons of CO2 (OP: equivalent to 8 months entire global CO2 output from all sources). In climate change terms, opposing nuclear was a gargantuan error for the Greens, and one that will echo down the ages as our globe's temperature rises. Some in the environmental movement have begun to realize their mistake, including members of the Green Party and the former director of Greenpeace U.K., Stephen Tindale, who courageously joined with me to make a front-page "mea culpa" declaration in the Independent newspaper on February 23, 2009. In the U.S., both Steward Brand and NASA scientist (and planet boundaries co-author) James Hansen have strongly supported nuclear in the battle against climate change."