Nuclear Power - Greenpeace Founder Says It's Good
Posted on Saturday, August 27, 2011 at 12:06 PM by Richard Schitts
So let me get this straight. The visionary founder of the green movement, the first environmentalist said -"other than hydroelectric energy—which I also strongly support—nuclear is the only technology besides fossil fuels available as a large-scale continuous power source". This is the original green activist speaking! He is not one of the conformist green joiners that we see today, he's the original those people try to emulate.
Nuclear power is also very very clean, with only small amounts of waste and almost no CO2. A coal fired power plant of similar size emits more radioactive particles into the environment! Contrary to popular belief that nuclear power "breeds" nuclear weapons the opposite is actually true. There is a program in place where America and Russia are reducing their nuclear arsenals by using their warheads to generate electricity.
-But look at all that smoke! What? It's purely water vapor? Oh.
A nuclear power plant operates in the same way as a natural gas or coal fired power plant. Water is boiled which runs a turbine, with no mixing of heavy water in the core with the working fluid. There is one important difference - nothing is burned. Instead of releasing toxins to the atmosphere through smoke it is all contained as a solid. This gives much more control in how the waste is disposed of.
Properly built and designed a nuclear power plant is the greenest safest power around. We now have powerful computer controls which were lacking in the 50's, 60's and 70's. Look at France - 70-80 % of it's energy comes from nuclear power without a major incident in decades of operation!
When nuclear power was new it was a good thing for people to be concerned. Now that it is a mature technology with 6th (!) generation designs it is much safer. An excellent article can be found here: http://www.economist.com/node/15048703
The problem with current reactors is that they are all OLD! Possibly the worst legacy of the green movement is residual fear in nuclear power. The world could be a much greener place, but it isn't thanks to Greenpeace and other environmentalists.
Edited on: Monday, August 29, 2011 1:16 PMPosted in Other Environmental Discussion (RSS)