[Global Warming]

What About Nukes?

Despite Cheneymania, let me try to return to the week's topic for a moment. There's one source of power that is totally emission-free, is currently readily available and requires little infrastructure, and which could easily produce the world's energy: nuclear power. The question of safety is also relatively answerable, which leaves only one drawback (but it is a doozy)--waste.

Well, no less than James Lovelock, who (correctly) describes global warming as the "greatest danger that civilisation has faced so far," favors nukes. Here's how he measures the costs and benefits:

Opposition to nuclear energy is based on irrational fear fed by Hollywood-style fiction, the Green lobbies and the media. These fears are unjustified, and nuclear energy from its start in 1952 has proved to be the safest of all energy sources. We must stop fretting over the minute statistical risks of cancer from chemicals or radiation. Nearly one third of us will die of cancer anyway, mainly because we breathe air laden with that all pervasive carcinogen, oxygen. If we fail to concentrate our minds on the real danger, which is global warming, we may die even sooner, as did more than 20,000 unfortunates from overheating in Europe last summer.

Lovelock is variously regarded as a visionary or a crank, but no one doubts his commitment to the environment. In fact, the degree to which you regard him as a visionary probably depends on your view of the seriousness of global warming. If you think it will, like Republicans argue, increase only gradually, so that compensatory technologies can be found to reverse its worst effects, he's a crank. No reason to mess with nukes in that scenario--plenty of time for wind and nitrogen.

But llovelock's position is extreme: "the Earth is already so disabled by the insidious poison of greenhouse gases that even if we stop all fossil fuel burning immediately, the consequences of what we have already done will last for 1,000 years." He thinks the world is already destined for catastrophic disaster. In his scenario, the dangers of nuclear power are incredibly small.

So it really comes down to which model you go with. If Lovelock's scenario is anything close to as likely as the "no worries" model (and science says it is), which way should we hedge our bets, for or against nuclear power? I think it's time good liberals and environmentalists begin to reconsider nukes.