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Nuclear nonsense: why nuclear power is no answer to climate change and the World's post-Kyoto energy challenges
journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-08, 23:18 authored by Benjamin SovacoolBenjamin Sovacool, Christopher CooperNuclear power plants are a poor choice for addressing energy challenges in a carbon-constrained, post-Kyoto world. Nuclear generators are prone to insolvable infrastructural, economic, social, and environmental problems. They face immense capital costs, rising uranium fuel prices, significant lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions, and irresolvable problems with reactor safety, waste storage, weapons proliferation, and vulnerability to attack. Renewable power generators, in contrast, reduce dependence on foreign sources of uranium and decentralize electricity supply so that an accidental or intentional outage would have a more limited impact than the outage of larger nuclear facilities. Most significantly, renewable power technologies have environmental benefits because they create power without relying on the extraction of uranium and its associated digging, drilling, mining, transporting, enrichment, and storage. As a result, renewable energy technologies provide a much greater potential for substantial carbon emissions reductions than significant investments in new nuclear power generation.
History
Publication status
- Published
Journal
William and Mary Environmental Law and Policy ReviewISSN
1091-9724Publisher
College of William and MaryIssue
1Volume
33Page range
1-119Department affiliated with
- SPRU - Science Policy Research Unit Publications
Full text available
- No
Peer reviewed?
- Yes
Legacy Posted Date
2015-12-02Usage metrics
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