Jeremy Rifkin is the economic and social theorist, writer, activist, public speaker, political advisor to the European Union, and author of 23 books about the influence of scientific and technological changes on the economy, the workforce, society, and the environment.
At an annual investors’ meeting of Germany’s Wermuth Asset Management Group in October 2013, Rifkin was asked his opinion of nuclear power in view of climate change.
Rifkin said, “Frankly, I think from a business perspective it’s over. Let me explain why …
“No. 1: … There are only 400 nuclear power plants [436 in 2023]. These are old nuclear power plants, but our scientists tell us [that] to have a minimum impact on climate change — which is the whole rationale for bringing this technology back — nuclear would have to be 20 percent of the energy mix to have the minimum, minimum impact on climate change, not six percent of the mix [10% in 2023]. That means we’d have to replace the existing 400 nuclear plants and build 1,600 additional plants — three nuclear plants have to be built every 30 days for 40 years to get to 20 percent — and by that time climate change will have run its course for us. So I think, from a business point of view, I just don’t see that investment. I’d be surprised if we replace 100 of the 400 existing nuclear plants which would take us down to 1 or 2 percent of the energy [mix].
“No. 2: We still don’t know how to recycle the nuclear waste and we’re 70 years in. We have good engineers in the United States. We spent 18 years and $8 billion building an underground vault in Yucca Mountain to store the waste for 10,000 years, but we can’t use it. It’s already no good because there are cracks in the mountain. But any geologist could have told them we live on tectonic plates and you can’t keep underground vaults secure.
“No. 3: We run into uranium deficits according to the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] between 2025 and 2035 with just the existing 400 plants. So that means the price goes up.
“No. 4: We could do what the French generation of new plants is doing and recycle the uranium to plutonium. But then we have plutonium all over the world in an age of uncertainty and terrorism.
“No. 5: And this is the big one that people don’t realize: We don’t have the water. Over 40 percent of all the fresh water consumed in France each year goes to cooling the nuclear reactors. It’s almost 50 percent now. When it comes back [when reactor cooling water is returned to the lakes and rivers] it’s heated and it’s dehydrating our ecosystems, and threatening our agriculture. We don’t have the water, and this is true all over the world. We have saltwater nuclear plants but then you have to put them on coastal regions and you risk a Fukushima because of tsunamis.
“The last thing: nuclear power is centralized power, like fossil fuels. It doesn’t fit a new generation that’s moving with the kind of technologies that are distributed, collaborative, and laterally scaled. It’s an old technology. So it’s no accident Siemens [Corporation] is out [of the reactor business], Germany is out, Italy is out, Japan is now out, and I think with [French] President Holland’s election — I met with him in the spring — they’re moving to a Third Industrial Revolution Model in France. I’d be surprised if nuclear has much of a life left. I don’t think it’s a good business deal.”
— Video of Jeremy Rifkin at the Annual Investors Event of Germany’s Wermuth Asset Management Group, Oct. 8, 2013.
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