Climate Files 55 / Drop the Nuke Bias
Being antinuclear is like a religion to many environmentalists. But solving climate change will be a compromise of what is possible and needed. We are not going to get a green utopian world to emerge and solve climate change with windmills. Even environmentalists want to be able to charge their cell phones and laptops. Should we throw it all away, or find out a realistic way to power it all once the coal plants are gone? We should be supporting nuclear plants over CCS any day. The last thing we want to do is spend billions locking in coal for another 50 years, something that could kill us all.
The Clean Air Act is under attack by Republicans with new legislation trying to block EPA again again. You can help save it by contacting your Reps. here.
Some news discussed in this episode includes information on and quotes from the books Storms of My Grandchildren by James Hansen and the Vanishing Face of Gaia by James Lovelock. Hansen’s letter to Obama is here (PDF). The UK must raise its CO2 emissions target to a 42% cut, says a new report. Read why our endless consumerism needs to be replaced with sustainable living here. The story about Bell Labs greening the internet by 2015 is here. There is a lot more in this episode including an audio description of what a thorium reactor is and how it works.
Read another interview with Stewart Brand, whose interview is played in this episode, here at e360.
More info on thorium reactors:
- How a Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR) works
- Energy from Thorium blog
- Uranium is so Last Century
Contact CF using the contact form at the top or email CF at news @ climatefilesradio (dot) com
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Music at end: Nuclear Power Plant by Zen Eyes
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Climate Files 14 / Nuclear Power Potential
This episode presents four scientists and environmentalists making the case for the use of nuclear power.
It’s believed by some people that environmentalists should be against nuclear power — I completely disagree. We are trying to find ways to solve and stop climate change, not fight the possibilities and the ideas for doing that. Nuclear power has improved a lot since the 1970′s, and it’s a strong source of nearly CO2-free power. Nuclear energy is not a political issue, it’s just a form of energy, and for the near future at least, a necessary one. There are many environmentalists who are for the development of new nuclear power, Generation IV or IFR — Integral Fast Reactors. This episode discusses nuclear power, why it may be necessary, why new power plants are safer, and why it might be a good source of heavy-duty power for many years to come.
Read chapter 4 on nuclear power from the new book Prescription for the Planet, — “Newclear Power” – by downloading it here. Author Tom Blees has generously decided to put this chapter (pg 117 — 139) on the web to allow a more rapid dissemination of the basic facts about IFR to everyone you know (family, friends, fellow environmentalists, politicians, the media) — so please do pass on the link: http://tinyurl.com/cwvn8n
Also visit the site for the book and download chapter 1. This notification came from a very good spot online for energy information: Brave New Climate.
More on the The Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) project here.
Also interesting: George Monbiot does not reject nuclear power. Neither does climate scientist James Hansen, or UK scientist James Lovelock. Neither does Energy Secretary Steven Chu. If nuclear will be a necessary power source for the future, when can we start building them?
Nuclear Energy Must Power Our Future — an Intelligence Squared debate, and two viewpoints on nuclear energy are in this episode.
The graphic for this episode is from the COP15 logo. You can sign up and submit your thoughts to the UN’s “Climate Thoughts”. A very cool globe of thoughts from all over the world.
Music: Afro Celt Sound System “Dark Moon, High Tide”
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