Daily Policy Digest
Energy Issues
April 18, 2008
A RENEGADE AGAINST GREENPEACE
Other than hydroelectric energy, nuclear is the only technology besides fossil fuels available as a large-scale continuous power source, and one you can rely on to be running 24 hours a day, seven days a week, says Patrick Moore, one of the cofounders of Greenpeace and now a critic of the environmental movement.
The idea that nuclear power is not cost competitive is simply not true, says Moore:
- France, which produces 80 percent of its electricity with nuclear, does not have high energy costs.
- Sweden, which produces 50 percent of its energy with nuclear and 50 percent with hydro, has very reasonable energy costs.
- The cost of production of electricity among the 104 nuclear plants operating in the United States is 1.68 cents per kilowatt-hour; the cost of production of electricity from nuclear is very low and competitive with coal.
- Gas costs three times as much as nuclear, at least.
- Wind costs five times as much and solar costs 10 times as much.
Moore also advocates establishing a recycling industry for nuclear fuel, which would reduce the amount of waste to less than 10 percent of what it would be without recycling:
- Half of the nuclear energy being produced in the United States is now coming from dismantled Russian nuclear warheads
- The environmental movement is going on about how terrible it will be if someone does something destructive with these materials.
- Actually the opposite is occurring; all over the world, people are using former nuclear-weapons material for peaceful purposes.
Source: Fareed Zakaria, "A Renegade Against Greenpeace," Newsweek, April 12, 2008.
For text:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/131753
For more on Nuclear Energy:
http://eteam.ncpa.org/issues/?c=nuclear-energy
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http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_Category=22