Nuclear Power is Not the Answer to Global Warming or Anything Else
Nuclear Power is Not the Answer to Global Warming or Anything Else – Review
Prior reviews have done a good affair of effectively putting this book in it’s place (namely, at the bottom of a wastebasket), but there are some notable facts that must be stated especially regarding ‘green’ energy; facts that the media doesn’t place on the front page and which Caldicott’s book overlooks or glosses over. Ironically, many of the arguments that she uses against nuclear power can easily be eventually turned around and commonly used to attack wind, solar and, the most deadly of the renewable energy sources, hydroelectric (see below). If nuclear power is like cutting butter with a chainsaw as she says, wind and solar resemble cutting butter with a individual hair, and hydroelectric power is like cutting butter with 500 pounds of nitroglycerin (Can you imagine that? Baking would usurp sports as the model of masculinity!!). Firstly, from an financial standpoint, solar is a sunk cost. According to Severin Borenstein, Professor of Business at UC-Berkeley, solar panels–even under the most generous of conditions (thin clouds, regular access to open sunlight during every second of daylight; both of which are exceedingly rare in the REAL world)–solar panels don’t still generate enough power over their lifetime to recover yet thirty per cents of the charge of installation! (Cf. “Professor Says Solar Panels a ‘Loser’”, San Jose Mercury News) While nuclear power plants are being designed that can desalinate water and still generate hydrogen for fuel cells while also producing electricity 24/7, wind and solar cannot do these on their own. They simply generate electricity and, even then, due to nature, only about thirty per cents of the time (can you imagine your life without electricity for 5 days of the week?). If wind and solar are as reliable as Dr. C would have us believe, why is the Netherlands (where wind & solar are commonly used heavily) always getting electricity from France (where Nuclear provides eighty per cents of the nation’s electricity)? Does that sound like energy independence to you? Of course, then we have subsidies (which Dr. C supports for wind and solar), which are as horrible an idea as any. Newspapers like to report headlines along the lines of “Government provides money to nuclear industry to build plants”, while neglecting to mention that the government really gives out LOANS, which must be repaid. Obama just awarded the wind and solar industries a massive subsidy. Why not a loan? Because subsidies are perfect for industries that generate NEGATIVE profits but which are generally deemed ‘necessary’ by the powers that be. (I don’t know about you, but I sure don’t trust our current “particular interest friendly” administration to tell me what’s necessary.) So if a wind company fails 50,000 this year, the government sends them a check for 50,000 to cover that loss. There are tens of billions of YOUR dollars in such subsidies for the wind and solar industries. Sounds like complete insanity to me; if a company’s product is inferior, or its workers are inefficient, why should WE forfeit to keep it afloat? Why are people so outraged when the banks & auto industry grow such favors, but silent when the green industry does as well? Lastly, I want to address hydroelectric power, Dr. C’s pet child, an historically unsafe supply of electricity which even some pro-nuclear environmentalists have (mistakenly) espoused. Whereas nuclear power’s handful of accidents in 50 years have usually caused the deaths of a few hundred (at most), hydroelectric disasters have nearly killed hundreds of thousands. The Banqiao Dam failure of the 1970’s nearly killed 171,000 Chinese and eventually left millions homeless. And Three Mile Island becomes all the press?! The Vajont Dam failure in Italy in 1963 nearly killed 2,000. Yet all you hear is “Chernobyl Chernobyl Chernobyl!” The Situ Gintung dam in Indonesia now went kaput this past March, killing over 100 in the process. That’s just three of many. Of course, there’s also the great threat of terrorism. Frankly, I’d feel greatly safer possibly living near a nuclear plant than a hydroelectric. (I await the frantic reactions of pro-hydro crowd, which will perhaps resemble the immediately following: “That was a long time ago, the industry has officially changed!” “Science has usually made hydro safer,” “The overall risk is small, but necessary since we need clean consistent energy.” Ironically, these are the exact same arguments that THEY instantly dismiss when highly expressed in security of nuclear energy.) If nuclear waste is the elephant in the area of the nuclear industry, as a previous review laughingly put it, then hydroelectric’s REAL potential for mass destruction and death is the elephant in the area of the green industry. Caldicott doesn’t mention any of this, of course. You could nearly say the anti-nuclear crowd are the “creationists” of the eventually left. But I’m sure the coal industry loves them, since it’s obvious that’s who will fill the energy void newly created by any nuclear phaseout. Do yourself a favor and skip this book. And Dr. Caldicott, please do the world (and environment) a favor and stop writing these books.