Why isnt the global warming crowd not encouraging nuclear power from the filthy coal plants?

Question

coal burning power plants dump 8 -16 million tons of cO2 in the air...each one....not just that, but also mercury and other toxic stuff.

nuclear power is clean, and the nuke waste can be recycled.

Answer 1

I don't know who you mean when you say "global warming crowd".  Dr. James Hansen of NASA, encourages nuclear power:

http://www.aussmc.org.au/documents/Hanse...

"Choices among alternative energy sources - renewable energies, energy efficiency, nuclear power, fossil fuels with carbon capture - these are local matters. But decision to phase out coal use unless the CO2 is captured is a global imperative"

Politicians like John McCain and Barrack Obama, have promoted more nuclear power.

Yahoo answers like myself and Bob, clearly acknowledge nuclear power can be a part of the solution (but there's not unlimited fuel there either, so it's not the whole solution).

Answer 2

There is NO evidence whatsoever that CO2 alters temperature.

Answer 3

Lots of the "global warming crowd" is encouraging nuclear power, get with the program.  It's only a solution to our energy problem if we go to breeder reactors, though, because there's not enough uranium around to satisfy our need for electricity.  While the U.S. doesn't think it's a big threat if France has breeder reactors, they are not keen on Iran having any, or probably Venezuela or Cuba for that matter.

It also suffers from waste heat, which will cause global warming on its own if our power use continues growing at its current rate.

Answer 4

I have no opposition to nuclear and I'm part of the "global warming crowd."

Answer 5

We are (or at least the intelligent ones are, accepting global warming is necessary but not sufficient).

Nuclear is really the only thing that can solve our problem since wind and solar still need backup power usually provided by natural gas (which is half as bad as coal, still pretty d**n c**p) and hydro and geothermal don't work everywhere (and we haven't figured out fusion, clean coal or large scale energy storage and don't have the infrastructure needed for space solar power).

Even then they'd be a lot of work to do but the Sulphur-Iodine cycle looks very promising, maybe combine it with a few other reactions to make synthetic hydrocarbons from CO2 in the atmosphere and water.

Even without global warming nuclear is much safer than anything else out there (look at the weekly coal mine collapse) and is the only power source in which billion dollar generating equipment can be written off without killing anyone (do you think a billion dollars worth of coal power plant could be written without anyone dying, billion dollar dams breaking, because that's what happened at TMI2).

Whilst we're not running out of fossil fuels (one of the problems actually, since if we were they'd be no way to get out of switching to nuclear, look at why France has so much nuclear power) having an energy source that will be usable for longer than it'll take for us to run out of fossil fuels (several hundred years) would be a very good idea (we won't run out of Uranium any time soon, those that think that's a possibility don't know how much Uranium there is).

Answer 6

Because it's not about CO2, it's about limiting what they consider to be "consumerist" lifestyles.

They hate the mall and the strip mall and all they stand for.

That's fine, that's their opinion, they're free to move to Vermont and make statues out of scrap metal and sell them by the roadstand and wear plaid shirts and grow beards like the Unabomber.

But some of us don't choose that lifestyle and don't want it forced upon us, any more than g*y people want a straight lifestyle forced upon them.

And absent tangible, physical, real, actual proof that the activities these people seek to limit actually materially contribute to global warming, there is no difference between the two examples.

EDIT - OK for SOME of them it's about CO2.      But not for UCS, which was a leading anti-nuclear advocate, or Greenpeace.........   And in Europe, France and the UK have gone nuclear.    Bob in particular deserves a shout-out - he has made it clear that he supports nuclear.

For most of the AGW advocates in the US, it's about imposing a Unabomber-type lifestyle.    They spent the 1970s killing nuclear power on what they knew to be false grounds, we built gas and coal fired plants instead, and now they're going after gas and coal.  

This is a systematic attack on "consumerism."

I think the mall is stupid too, I think SUVs are stupid too - but if you want to drive your SUV to the mall, it's your business.

Answer 7

Massive amounts of energy are used to process the nuclear fuel before it can be used, in addition to that used in the construction of nuclear plants.

As for "the nuke waste can be recycled", where did you get that fairy story ?  The stuff's going to be around for generations (also using time and resources for its maintenance and protection).

Answer 8

They are.  Next question.

Answer 9

The problem is the waste can not be recycled today - it is just buried and needs to be undisturbed for a few hundred thousand years. This is not a solution. Also there is major risks involved in nuclear power - an explosion in a nuclear power plant is a lot more serious than one in a coal plant. Any malfunction in a nuclear plant has the potential of killing hundreds of thousands of people, and making it impossible to live in the entire area for several lifetimes.

Even with all these drawbacks I agree that it is the best we have - but it isn't something that should be promoted as a solution.

Answer 10

Beats me??? Zero CO2-- the waste issue is social and political NOT technical---

They all must have watched the China Syndrome when they were kids --- and mistook it for the real thing.