Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
power).
In the United States
it
supplies
%of
electricity;
in Japan
% (pre-Fukushima);
in South
Korea
%. Many nations new to
nuclear reactors are showing interest.
France, with
%; and in France
% of its electricity from nuclear react-
ors that emit no greenhouse gases, should be the poster
child of the environmental movement. The country emits
less than half the world average of greenhouse gas per unit
GDP. If the entire world was like France, we would
reduce carbon emissions by half, cutting them by about
.
billion tonnes per year (
.
billion tonnes of carbon
amounts to
billion tonnes of CO
) and would have
much more time to bring global warming under control.
Yet the opposition to nuclear energy has been strong
enough (mainly from countries in Western Europe with
the exception of France) to prevent nuclear power from
being accepted in the
“
Clean Development Mechanism
”
in the
Kyoto Protocol, which gives extra credits to
energy sources that emit no greenhouse gases. Opposition
remains in the United States and parts of Europe, but
seems to be weakening at present, nearly three years after
the Fukushima meltdown. Some prominent environmen-
talists have changed their minds about nuclear power
because of concern about global warming.
(A primer on
For example James Lovelock, leading environmentalist, creator of the
Gaia theory, quoted in the British newspaper, The Independent, May
,
; Patrick Moore, leading ecologist and environmentalist, one of the
founders of Greenpeace, Chair and Chief Scientist of Greenspirit,
quoted in The Miami Herald, January
ore,
former Bishop of Birmingham (UK) and former chairman and trustee
for Friends of the Earth, quoted in the British newspaper, The Tablet,
October
,
; Hugh Monte
,
; Stewart Brand, noted environmentalist and founder,
