The Triple Bottom Line Blog

Nuclear might be one solution to the fossil fuel issue, but it seems like a bad idea in the long run to me, no matter how safe anybody claims it is. We should focus on using renewable sources of energy like wind and solar for the next several decades, while also working hard to develop a long term solution that doesn't depend so heavily on environmental factors.

I would also trust Homer Simpson a lot more with a wind farm.

Actually, the Fortune article (which I shamelessly used as the vehicle for a mere gag) does a pretty good job of scanning the various issues (safety and others) that need to be addressed before we move to expand nuclear power as an option for the coming decades. Unfortunately it doesn't appear as though those issues will be addressed in the thoughtful, thorough way they deserve--no great surprise in a world where politics is basically a playing field for polarized parties largely driven by the interests of campaign contributors.

I agree with DK in theory. But in practice the planet is faced with an insatiable and scary demand for energy in China, where the 10 year plan calls for one new 800MW plant a week - mostly using dirty coal. That's 500 additional coal fired plants in this decade alone, in one country. There are also 150 new power plants on the docket for the USA.

We are not solving the near term demand with renewables in the near term. And we are not keeping China back economically. We could solve some of the problem with conservation, but only a small percentage.

We must be realistic about these problems without cutting short our hopes for the future. In the near term we are faced with a hard choice between more nuclear or more climate change.

Of course, some middle ground solutions are possible like clean coal technologies, which appear promising..but there is no way that renwables are going to solve a big part of this in the next decade. The plants will be in the ground before we know it.

We should not be on the sidelines screaming for more renweables, for then we are on the sidelines. We need to be in the fight for the future and in order to do so we need to argue and fight for renewables as quickly as possible without sticking our heads in the sand.