Nuclear power no sure cure for climate ills

…the Council on Foreign Relations, a Washington think tank, says it is almost impossible to build enough nuclear power plants to arrest the rise in earth temperatures. It would be hard for the nuclear industry to procure large amounts of reactor-grade construction materials and hire enough trained workers, the report said.

“Given the current U.S. energy sources and patterns of use, nuclear energy alone does not provide a solution for at least the next few decades for significantly reducing the U.S. contribution to global warming,” wrote Charles Ferguson, the council’s science and technology fellow.

To hold global carbon dioxide emissions at year 2000’s levels, the world would need between 1,900 and 3,300 gigawatts of nuclear capacity by 2050, Ferguson wrote in the report, which was also sponsored by Washington and Lee University. The typical nuclear reactor produces about one gigawatt, or 1,000 megawatts, of power output. About one new reactor would have to come on line each week over the next four decades, he wrote.

Some 103 reactors currently generate about 20 percent of U.S. electricity. The Energy Department said that in 2004 the electricity sector kept 142 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from entering the air by using nuclear power.

Reuters