Just wait till they start running rolling powercuts in the western world. Then see how quickly everyone suddenly likes the sound of the only available option - Nuclear............
That's about the size of it, but those blackouts will come in a world substantially hotter from global warming. Not a good combination at all. Lessons will be learned from the Fukushima accident and more nuclear power stations will be built after some delay. By the end of this decade it will become blindingly obvious that renewables alone cannot cut it and there will be a rush to nuclear. There is a crying need for governments, especially the US which still has the most expertise, to fund R&D for advanced Generation IV reactors that are safer and as economic as possible, deal with the waste issue and close the nuclear fuel cycle. Otherwise the lights will go out.
Oh, I see, they pay you more delivering this garpage propaganda. Anybody who has taken a look at the table showing yearly increases of electricity generation for the last few years will laugh at you. Last year nuclear saw surprise surprise, a small increase for a change. This year it will be downhill again, and fast, due to Fukushima. Or do you think they restart those blown reactors? Solar cell production is estimated to be nearly 70 GW in 2011. And that is all new capacity of course. In fact PV is surpassing wind in Europe.
It's really quite amazing how the anti-nukes have degenerated into name calling. Anything they don't like to hear instantly becomes "propaganda", the World Heath Organization has suddenly become a public relations arm of the nuclear industry because it's assessment of the Chernobyl disaster was not able to find enough dead bodies to support some of the wild claims of the anti-nukes. Anybody that can rub two brain cells together and raise important issues about energy and climate are now labelled as "shills" and accused of being paid for their trouble. Low grade stuff. Here's the reality. Only hydro and nuclear make a significant contribution to CO2 emissions abatement in electricity generation. Hydro produces about 16% of the worlds electricity and nuclear 14%. Non-hydro renewables - solar, wind, geothermal etc - about 3%. For all the good they are doing they may as well not be there. Renewables will certainly increase, but please lets see some runs on the board before accepting grand claims that they can power the world. Blind faith and some sort of technological cargo cult has no place in addressing climate change. It remains a fact that the only country without huge hydro resources to ever get rid of fossil fuels in electricity generation is France - by using nuclear power. As a consequence France has CO2 emissions of about 85 grams CO2/kWh. The poster children of renewables - Germany and Denmark - sill have CO2 emissions an order of magnitude higher. Germany is building new coal fired power plants. Inquiring minds want to know why this is. There is a deplorable and disingenuous habit of renewables advocates of quoting figures of 70GW of PV and conveniently ignoring the capacity factor. Modern (and some not so modern eg in the US) nuclear power plants operate at a capacity factor of 90% or so. In Germany, for example, PV capacity factor is about twelve percent. So, for example, Germany's 18 GW of PV actually produces about the same amount of electricity as 2.4 GWe of nuclear. Substantially less than two Areva EPR nuclear power stations, which could have been had for 10-15% of the cost of PV. Would EPRs have survived the Fukushima earthquake and tsunami without major problems? Most likely. I very much doubt that in Europe PV is overtaking wind. Please justify that claim and take into account capacity factor. In fact let's put discussion of energy on a sound and factual basis.
+1 Lol you pegged this guy to a T. He must be some sort of nuclear lobbyist as he has such a pro-nuclear fixation and tries to sell it in every post.
Rants aside, the fact remains that perception is reality. Enough nuclear related incidents/disasters have occurred to make any attempt at building a large-scale nuclear power plant near any densely populated urban area a non-starter. The pro-nuke argument of reducing CO2 emissions is just as much a red-herring as any anti-nuke perspectives on accidents. The core issue with nuclear is what the fuck do we do with the spent fuel afterward. We've been at this now for 50 years and the U.S. still doesn't have a cohesive spent fuel solution in place. Storing it on-site is not an answer. It's irresponsible and selfish to simply punt this problem down the road to future generations. Actually, about 25% of the nuclear power plants in the world today operate at 90% of their rated capacity. About two-thirds of them operate at about a 75% load capacity. However, the 12% you mentioned when it comes to PV is not the same at all. That 12% is the conversion efficiency factor of today's solar cell technology. To turn that into an argument for nuclear and against solar is just as disingenuous. Admittedly, renewable energy is still an immature industry. But, the only danger that presents is to our pocketbook. You can't say the same when it comes to spent fuel disposal, can you?
Sorry, didn't mean to be rude. It was only a reaction to your continuos recursion of the same old phrases. What comes to WTO, you should check the silent agreement between wto and nuclear industry. WTO doesn't publish anything nuke related before it's approved by the nuke guys. Money talks. Concerning Tchernobyl and the death toll, you like more the Monbiot's numbers of a few liquidators than those of a group of Russian scientists whose years long study show that over a million people have died since 86 because of the accident. In case of Fukushima that number may be multiplied by 4-6 at least. What comes to CO2 reductions let's look at Finland again. In 2002 they decided to build their fifth reactor (a population of 5m!!!). The main intention was to reach the Kyoto target. The result was that investments in renewable energy have been the lowest in EU, the co2 target will not be met and 12 years of precious time has been lost, even if the reactor goes online at 2014. All in all, nuclear has not given much help in reducing co2 emissions in the last years. By IAEA: capacity change of nuke reactors by year: 2010 +3,6 GW 2009 -0,6 2008 -0,4 2007 +1,7 2006 -0,6 2011 -??? Looking at IAEA homepage you see the future of nuclear power. What is more telling than a picture of Fukushima?
futuman, There is a list of new nuclear reactors under construction and scheduled to come on line in the next few years here: http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf17.html Of course it is not enough. And neither is the build of renewables. In all likelihood both will be needed. As for Finland meeting it's renewable targets or not, I could not care less. What matters is CO2 emissions and as the comparison between France and Germany or Denmark illustrates renewables are not the only way, and quite possibly not the best way to get CO2 emissions down. And as for the build time of the EPR in Finland, you should be aware of the counter example of the most recent new NPP plant to come on-line at the end of February in Sth Korea took four years from "first concrete" to "criticality" followed by six months of commissioning tests before entering commercial service. China also seems to be on time and within budget with it's current builds. For the domestically designed CPR I understand that the build time is 52 months. Stating that NPPs take ten years to build by their very nature is just not true. If you want to understand some of the issues with renewables powering the planet have a look at the following by Prof Barry Brooke of Adelaide university, where he looks at scenarios including build rates and materials requirements. Daunting indeed! http://bravenewclimate.com/2009/10/18/tcase4/
It will be interesting to see how they are going to build those Fukushima I-7 and I-8 which are supposed to start 2014 and 2015 respectively. Might be hard to find workers there.
remember, governments always tell the truth and are deeply concerned about your health. so as big pharma corporations. roll up your sleeves, shut up and listen to tv commercials. and your doctor when he tells you to undergo a chemo.