A number of scientists have called for the renewed use of nuclear power as a solution to help stop global warming, the Associated Press (News - Alert) reports.
These scientists include James Hansen, formerly of NASA, Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution, Kerry Emanuel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Tom Wigley of the University of Adelaide in Australia.
“The time has come for those who take the threat of global warming seriously to embrace the development and deployment of safer nuclear power systems,” the letter said.
Hansen notably introduced global warming into the public consciousness by testifying in front of Congress in 1988.
While alternative energy sources like wind and solar power are laudable, they simply can’t replace other fuel sources like coal efficiently.
“Those energy sources cannot scale up fast enough” the authors said in the letter. “With the planet warming and carbon dioxide emissions rising faster than ever, we cannot afford to turn away from any technology.”
The increased use of nuclear power may be a tough sell to environmentalists and the general public, particularly after a series of high profile accidents at nuclear plants, the most recent being the Fukushima Daiichi meltdown in 2011.
After the Three Mile Island partial nuclear meltdown in 1979, no new nuclear power plants were authorized for construction in the U.S. until 2012.
One environmental advocacy group, Natural Resources Defense Council, said that nuclear power was “not a panacea.”
Besides the relatively small risk for catastrophic accidents like Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima, there’s the matter of what to do with the nuclear waste after the fuel is used by the reactor. The waste has to be transported and stored somewhere.
The authors of the letter acknowledge that nuclear power is not perfect, and that there are risks involved, but the risk from climate change is far greater.
Edited by Blaise McNamee