Pieter Cleppe wrote a piece for The Independent titled Green activists need to give nuclear energy a chance if they really want to tackle CO2 emissions (15 September 2019).
« The production of solar panels and wind turbines requires hazardous materials and – unlike in the case of nuclear waste – there are no proper plans on how to deal with these by-products, which are expected to hit 78 million metric tonnes by 2050. »
« Despite policy changes in countries like Germany and Belgium, 50 new nuclear reactors are currently being constructed around the globe (15 of which are in China alone), and new technologies are constantly being developed. Take small modular reactors (SMRs), which are much safer thanks to their reliance on “passive”, less energy-consuming systems. Companies as diverse as NuScale Power, Rolls-Royce and China National Nuclear Corp. (CNNC) are betting on their success. »
« While many proponents of renewables and battery technology point at how future technological development will sort out their many shortcomings, very few assume technological progress is possible for nuclear technology. On the contrary, innovations are routinely dismissed out of hand and painted as dangerous. »
« One of the UK’s most respected environmental activists, George Monbiot, wrote that “as a result of the disaster at Fukushima, I am no longer nuclear-neutral. I now support the technology”, explaining that this really amounted to the ultimate test for nuclear power: “A crappy old plant with inadequate safety features was hit by a monster earthquake and a vast tsunami.[…] Yet, as far as we know no one has yet received a lethal dose of radiation”, a figure revised by the Japanese government to 1 last year. »
Articles of Interest 