Challenging Times - The Renaissance of Renewable Energy - page 183

5.8 The Nuclear Option
Nuclear energy is clearly not renewable, since the reserves of nuclear fuel are finite. Nor
would many see it as 'green' because of the risks associated with waste and accidents.
However, some notable voices, including Jesse Ausubel, co-organizer of the first UN
World Climate Conference, environmentalist James Lovelock, author of The Revenge of
Gaia (2007), and former Greenpeace Director Stephen Tindale, support the view that
nuclear powerneeds tobeembraced aspart ofasustainable approach toenergyproduction,
at least in the short to medium term. Ausubel goes as far as to dismiss renewables
such as wind, water, and biomass as 'boutique fuels' that are not truly green since they
would “cause serious environmental harm” if produced at a scale that would contribute
importantly to meeting global energy demand (Ausubel 2007 ).
Civilian nuclear technology was born out of military research by the Allied powers
after World War II, and to this day the nuclear power sector has difficulty shedding
its association with weapons of mass destruction. The USSR, Britain, and the United
States commissioned the first nuclear reactors for civilian electricity generation in quick
succession between 1954 and 1957. Currently there are roughly 430 nuclear power plants
in operation in thirty countries, producing 13 per cent of the world's electricity. However,
only ten countries rely on nuclear power to meet more than one-third of their electricity
needs, and only in three countries (France, Belgium, and Slovakia) is the majority of
electricity nuclear-generated. Nine countries are known to possess nuclear weapons (IAEA
2010, 2012 ) .
The relative decoupling of nuclear power from weapons is largely thanks to the work of
the International Atomic EnergyAgency,which wasset upin1957topromote the peaceful
use of nuclear energy, and the International Non-Proliferation Treaty, ratified by all but
four of the world's nations. 10 Yet despite these safeguards and controls, there remains a
danger that civilian nuclear power could serve as a cloak for the development of nuclear
weapons. Although the uranium fuel required for a weapon is very different from that used
in a reactor, the process for creating both is the same (IAEA 2012 ; Yergin 2011 ) .
There are good reasons both to embrace and reject nuclear power. The big positive is
that, according to the IEA, nuclear power has the “capability to deliver significant amounts
ofverylow-carbonbase-loadelectricity atcostsstableovertime”(IEA 2010a ,21).Inother
words, a nuclear plant is cheap and clean to run, in the conventional sense. Nuclear power
generation is a mature technology, and the fuel costs are lower than for other conventional
power sources. 11 This means that nuclear power is far more resistant to market fluctuations
than coal or gas.