When I was a kid growing up on Long Island, anti-nuclear sentiment rose to a crescendo in the early to mid-1980s, just as the Shoreham nuclear power plant on the Island’s eastern end was nearing completion. If you know your history, you know what happened around this time. As Wikipedia explains: The [Shoreham] plant faced…Continue Reading…
You may have heard, as Scientific American reports, that the “U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) voted to allow construction of two new nuclear reactors” in Georgia. It’s a pretty big deal, since Jimmy Carter was President the last time a commercial reactor was approved. As the LA Times notes, the new Georgia plant is supposed to…Continue Reading…
It’s really a shame that the U.S. environmental community doesn’t have anyone with the chops or reputation of George Monbiot, the popular British columnist. Monbiot, who has a high profile perch at the Guardian, combines essential talents for a communicator: He is lucid, engaging, and smart. He is also not afraid to call out his…Continue Reading…
Dig into the political history of nuclear power, as I did for “The Fallout,” published in the magazine this week, and one swiftly discovers that the success and failure of this technology hinges to an extraordinary degree on the political culture of the governments behind it. –Evan Osnos in the The New Yorker.
[UPDATE: In the comments, Kate Sheppard has responded to this post, saying that I (and William Connolley) have “grossly misconstrued” what she wrote in her Guardian article. Here is my explanation and apology to Kate.] In an article about the nuclear implications of this week’s East Coast earthquake, Kate Sheppard writes: We had a pretty good warning…Continue Reading…
It’s gonna hurt, reports the Guardian: The International Energy Agency has warned that the world faces higher energy costs, more carbon emissions and greater supply uncertainty if it turns its back on nuclear. Nobuo Tanaka, the executive director, signalled the organisation was likely to cut its estimates of atomic power when it finalises its latest World…Continue Reading…
So it’s official: Germany is banning nuclear power. Those who applaud this decision are obviously taking the long-term view–they see a clean energy age on the horizon. But in the short term, let’s be clear-eyed about the tradeoffs. For starters, their are potentially huge climate consequences. I’m curious to hear what climate policy wonks and…Continue Reading…
We are living in strange times. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, a conservative politician and until a few months ago, a longtime supporter of nuclear power, has vowed to shutter her nation’s 17 nuclear reactors and make renewable power, such as wind and solar, Germany’s dominant source of energy by 2030. Meanwhile, staunch British environmentalist George Monbiot, the…Continue Reading…
Eduardo Zorita packs a lot into this post. I’m not sure it coheres but it’s quite interesting. He touches on the importance of expert authorities and the IPCC and muses on “the interaction between technology and democracy”: We have now several new technologies that have been developed in the last few decades, which the individuals…Continue Reading…
The Guardian is hosting the Helen & George show this week. It’s reminiscent of this classic episode from the Seinfeld annals. On a related note: in the department of nuclear mea culpas, here’s Mark Lynas in The Economist: I entirely understand the arguments espoused by anti-nuclear campaigners, especially because I used to make them myself…Continue Reading…