This is an appeal to ignore imaginary technical fixes such as nuclear
energy and to concentrate on efforts to convince the public that
whatever you do technologically, unestrained economic growth will
render it useless.
Although the website set up by Jan Willem Storm van Leeuwen and
myself (http://www.oprit.rug.nl/deenen) gives the facts about why
nuclear power in no way satisfies the elementary criteria for a long
term, not to mention sustainable, energy source for society, I feel
called upon to also contribute to Crisis-forum on another, totally
neglected, facet of the picture.
That facet is the irrelevance of nuclear power to the problem of
carbon dioxide emissions in modern western societies. That it is
irrelevant to this problem comes from the fact that in our societies
about half of this emission comes from road traffic, a load on the
environment that is reaching the point where in and around our
cities simply breathing is becoming a threat to the health of larger
and larger segments of society. The introduction of nuclear power,
even if it were be able to provide electrical energy, devoid of carbon
dioxide emissions, on a very large and sustainable scale, that on a
number of counts (see the website mentioned above) it certainly is
not, would do absolutely nothing to reduce this load.
Visionaries may imagine the replacement of our entire infra-
structure with a nuclear power driven hydrogen economy. Such
fantasies envisage an unimaginable shift in industrial activity that
no instance on earth would even dream of financing. In the
meanwhile the irrational growth of road traffic continues without
limit, which it would do even if nuclear energy were to be reborn,
making the whole idea of the Kyoto agreement totally unrealistic.
--
Dr.Philip B.Smith, Steenhouwerskade 22,
9718 DB Groningen, The Netherlands
Tel(home) +31 50 3145093; Fax +31 50 3180085
Consulting scientist, IVEM Centre for Energy
and Environmental Studies, Univ. of Groningen
Email: [log in to unmask]
Website on nuclear energy:
http://www.oprit.rug.nl/deenen/ this site is mirrored at:
http://www.elstatconsultant.nl
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