Nuclear doesn’t have power to halt global warming

WASHINGTON: Nuclear power would only curb climate change by expanding worldwide at the rate it grew from 1981 to 1990, its busiest decade, and keep up that rate for half a century, a report said this week.

That would require adding on average 14 plants each year for the next 50 years, all the while building an average of 7.4 plants to replace those that will be retired, the report by environmental leaders, industry executives and academics said.


Currently, the United States, the world’s top nuclear power producer, has 104 plants that generate 20 per cent of the country’s electricity.

Nuclear power, which has near-zero emissions of carbon dioxide, has recently come back into fashion as an alternative to generating electricity from coal and other carbon-based sources that contribute to global warming.

While the report also supported storing US nuclear waste at power plants until the long-stalled Yucca Mountain repository opens, 10 dumps the size of Yucca Mountain would be needed to store the extra generated waste by the needed nuclear generation boom.

New Zealand Herald