Nukewatch Quarterly Summer 2016
Excerpted from Umair Irfan analysis in Scientific American, June 3, 2016
“‘All three generations of nuclear technology that are out there today require babysitting,’ said Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates during a panel last month in Washington, D.C. ‘The nuclear industry has never designed an inherently safe product.’ …
“However, existing reactors are tacking into the wind, in terms of economics and politics. Vermont [socialist] Sen. and Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders has laid out a plan to decommission every reactor in the United States. …
“Mark Jacobson, an energy researcher at Stanford University who found that it’s feasible for much of the world to run on wind, water and sunlight, acknowledged that nuclear energy has some carbon benefits but said it has an insurmountable drawback of opportunity costs, namely the billions of dollars needed upfront and the decades it takes to plan and build reactors. [See: “Stanford scientist unveils 50-state plan to transform US to renewable energy,” Stanford Report, Feb. 26, 2014.]
“‘If you’re looking at just one technology in isolation, maybe you don’t care about that opportunity cost,’
[Jacobson] said. ‘But when you’re comparing the two technologies, that becomes relevant. If you have $1 to spend, would you rather spend that on nuclear or wind?’
It is no longer a question of whether these 21st-century technologies can replace
nuclear power and fossil fuels. The question is when.
—MICHAEL MARIOTTE, 1952–2016
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