Green Jobs and the Ethics of Energy - Ethical Engineering for International Development and Environmental Sustainability - page 143

Table 5.1 Comparison of nuclear and renewables
Nuclear Renewables

Resource
lifetime

Uranium reserves ~100 years at
current use rates ~1,000 years
with fast breeders?

Effectively infi nite resource
lifetime

Resource scale
(REN21 2014 )

Currently ~3% of world energy, ~11%
of electricity

Currently ~19% of world energy
(with hydro) ~22% of electricity

Projection: maybe up to 50% of world
electricity . But lifetime of the resource
would then be limited

Projection: at least 50% of world
energy by 2050, perhaps near
100% but with possibly some
local access limits

Eco impacts Infrastructure impacts, cooling water

impacts, risks from very long-term
wastes ~10,000 years. Emissions
from fuel production and routine use

Local visual intrusion and land-use
confl icts, some local eco-impacts
(especially with biomass large
hydro, large tidal barrages)

Safety Major accidents ~10,000 deaths,

occasional/routine emissions of
radioactive material ~100s of deaths

Generally low risk, except large
hydro ~10,000 deaths

Costs High and could rise as uranium

resource dwindles, but new
technology could emerge

Some high, but most are moderate,
and all are falling as technology
develops

Output Electricity, but could be used for

direct heat or hydrogen production

Diverse sources: electricity,
heat, fuels

Reliability Occasional shutdowns Some rely on variable sources,

so need grid balancing/backup

Supply security Uranium/thorium deposits limited

to a few locations

Widely diffused energy sources
though some only localised

Security risks Signifi cant terrorist targets,

plutonium proliferation threat

No signifi cant problems except
with large hydro

The renewables, along with energy-saving measures, can help to reduce this
impact. There are now many scenarios suggesting that the EU, and indeed the world
as whole, could aim to get 100% of its electricity and perhaps also near 100% of
total energy, from renewables by around 2050 (MNG 2013 ). Even the relatively
conservative Global Energy Assessment, produced by an international team led by
the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, concluded that 'The share
of renewable energy in global primary energy could increase from the current 17%
to between 30% to 75%, and in some regions exceed 90%, by 2050' (GEA 2012 ).
Expansion on that scale may be technically credible and even economically pos-
sible, but is it politically likely? The ethical arguments in favour of making a transi-
tion to green energy include the basic one that we should not bequeath to our
descendants a ruined planet, in terms of climate change and resource depletion, and
the parallel view that it is also inequitable to leave them with radioactive waste to
deal with.
The ethical case for a radical change in approach to energy has been explored
widely, for example, by Sovacool in 'Energy and Ethics' (Sovacool 2013 ). Certainly,
as he and many others indicate, the rapid development of renewables, coupled with