[PREV - BELL_BOTTOM_FUTURES]    [TOP]

RADIOACTIVE_GREENS

                                                        May-July 2020
Must of us-- let's call my side the
"radioactive greens" for now (you don't want
me in charge of your marketing)-- aren't
actually completely hostile to wind and
solar, we just get pushed into this position     (I keep toying with calling
by the overreach of the solar and wind           the opposition "the rennies",
faction.                                         but that's my flair for naming
                                                 things at work again...)
For years now it seems
like the attitude of
technological optimists      The "Ted talk" debate between
has been that whatever       Stewart Brand and Mark Z. Jacobsen
virtues advanced nuclear     shows this well.
power might have there's
no point in thinking                               NUCLEAR_GALLUP
about it because wind and
solar are going to save
us all any day now.

   To summarize the position:

   Climate change is indeed a bad problem--
   and it could easily be even worse than we
   currently imagine.

   Reducing our GHG emissions (CO2 *and* methane)
   is critically important to slow climate change.

   Burning coal remains public enemy number one.           
   Anything else is an improvement.                                
                                                                      
   Burning any hydrocarbons (including natural gas)      With the       
   is a bad idea--                                       *possible*   
                                                         exception of
   Solar and Wind are doing well, but that               "biomass". 
   progress has often been exaggerated.
   We have yet to make much of a dent in GHG
   emissions.

   Shutting down nuclear power plants because you
   expect to get to solar/wind utopia real soon
   is grossly short-sighted.

   We almost certainly should be constructing new
   nuclear capacity-- the objections to doing so
   are answerable even with half-century old
   technology, and we can do better now.

   Research and Development of new nuclear designs
   should be accelerated.


--------
[NEXT - RENNIE_REVIEW]