Nuclear power helping with climate change

I arrived in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1976, fresh out of college and eager to make the world a better place from a leftist perspective. Opposition to nuclear power was a hot topic, and I joined the Clamshell Alliance, volunteering frequently at the office and on other projects, and culminating with the occupation at Seabrook in 1977. I was arrested. I continued active involvement for another year after that. We had a lot of valid concerns. Biggest was the danger of nuclear accidents, next the hazards of dealing with nuclear waste. We were worried about how the plants were vulnerable to terrorist attack. There were also problems with government subsidies to benefit rich owners, and questions about whether it was economically viable.

With the rise of climate change as an enormous problem, my attitude has changed. None of those problems is very serious compared to the climate catastrophe that is unfolding. Widespread use of nuclear power could significantly reduce carbon emissions. While I've argued that <we will not avert the catastrophe>, making things not as bad as they would otherwise be is a vital goal. And while "not as bad as it would otherwise be" is not a great political rallying cry, the stakes are high. Solar and wind power are promising, but nuclear power complements them, providing a great deal of energy that is available when the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow.

One big problem is that the "green" movement that is the strongest voices for addressing climate change has a fundamentally anti-technology assumption. Opposition to nuclear power has been a staple of this movement for years, and an about-face on the issue would be emotionally difficult, at the least. Their overall proposed solution of radically de-industrializing the world is simply not feasible (or, let's say it's 100 times more politically difficult than any other measures proposed). Much less intrusive measures such as a carbon tax have not gotten sufficient support to be implemented in the US, and the carbon taxes elsewhere are of modest size. Those who are suspicious of technological solutions should look at each one on its own merits instead of rebelling against all of them.

Nuclear power itself is a complicated issue and I'm far from an expert. There are safety concerns, highlighted by the Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan, and there are economic issues, as such plants having a high initial capital cost. In <"Enlightenment Now">, Steven Pinker argues that if the world settled on one of the newer nuclear designs with the best safety features, and built hundreds of the plants, the economies of scale would make it viable and safety issues would be minimized.

If we're going to mitigate the effects of climate change, we need to recognize that some of our older assumptions are no longer valid. That includes the assumption that nuclear power is too dangerous. The reluctance to do that is another sign that deep down, people still don't take climate change seriously, and don't understand that its dangers dwarf those of nuclear power.