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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