Nuclear Vs. Solar and Wind–A Lame Argument If There Ever Were One

I took a nice little hike with 2GreenEnergy supporter Cameron Atwood over the weekend, during which we discussed the sad fact that the pro- and anti-nuclear people are generally arguing the wrong points.

The anti-nuke people either accidentally or purposefully overstate the danger posed by nuclear, and they seem unwilling to consider the promise of advanced nuclear, i.e., liquid fluoride thorium reactors.

A colleague just wrote:

All four reactors at Fukushima survived the 9.1 quake completely intact, and shut down precisely as designed.  The only reason they melted down later was because the knuckleheads at TEPCO put the backup generators at sea level. The backup generators at Diablo (Canyon, CA) are 87 feet above sea level.

And, the faults in the Diablo area are strike-slip faults, not subduction faults like the Fuku area. Strike-slip faults do not cause quakes anywhere near 9.1, nor do they cause tsunamis large enough to get anywhere near Diablo’s backup generators.

Comparing Diablo to Fukushima is specious reasoning, and an exercise in paranoid propaganda. The proper comparison is Fukushima to Onagawa, a reactor plant up the coast from Fukushima, and 50 miles closer to the epicenter. And nothing happened at Onagawa. Nothing at all. As in – zip, zilch, nada.

Having said this, the pro-nuke people tend to be opposed to solar and wind—using reasoning that I find far more “specious” (to re-use this terrific word) than their opponents.

More to the point, it’s worth asking: Are advocates of renewables really “opponents?”   Renewable energy sources delivered nearly 13% of the nation’s electricity last year, offsetting an enormous amount of coal, with its attendant CO2, methane, NOx, SOx, cadmium, mercury, selenium, arsenic, and radioactive isotopes.  Let’s all admit it:  That is a good thing. 

Why don’t we all stop bickering about our carbon-free energy future and get the show on the road toward achieving it?