Nuclear Energy Sees Growing Support

Concerns about climate change are leading a growing number of experts and policy-makers to advocate a major shift to nuclear energy.

Just this week, officials in the U.K. announced its decision to build a new generation of nuclear power plants across the country. Prime Minister Gordon Brown's government argues nuclear energy will help the U.K. reduce its carbon dioxide emissions and help slow climate change.

Among scientists, perhaps the leading proponent of nuclear power as a solution to global warming is James Lovelock, the renowned British scientist who originated the Gaia Theory in the 1970s. That theory holds that Earth is a self-regulating system in which the atmosphere, oceans, surface rocks and life in all forms interact to keep conditions on the planet stable and inhabitable.

Lovelock warns that self-regulating system has now been thrown dangerously off-balance by the vast amounts of carbon dioxide humans have pumped into the air. Only by immediately shifting away from fossil fuels and toward nuclear power can we reverse those emissions before they destabilize the world's climate, he says.

"I believe nuclear power is the only source of energy that will satisfy our demands and yet not be a hazard to Gaia and interfere with its capacity to sustain a comfortable climate and atmospheric composition," Lovelock writes in his latest book, "The Revenge of Gaia: Earth's Climate Crisis & the Fate of Humanity" (2006, Basic Books).

Last year, the non-profit Keystone Center issued a Joint Fact-Finding on Nuclear Power prepared by 27 participants from academia, government, environmental groups and the nuclear industry. The report found some consensus on nuclear energy -- for example, participants agreed that, "In a carbon-constrained world, the relative economics of nuclear power will improve." -- but left other issues unresolved.

"The debate about nuclear power has endured for decades, and is not likely to disappear soon," said Mike Hughes, vice president of The Keystone Center. "However, this group has found agreement on a number of critical issues, and has significantly narrowed differences on others, which should help Congress, the administration and the public as they consider the future of nuclear power in this country."

The Keystone report did acknowledged that nuclear power could eliminate only a portion of humanity's carbon dioxide emissions, even if reactors were constructed around the world at historically high levels for the next 50 years. That limitation, coupled with environmental and security fears, leaves many green-minded activists adamantly opposed to the expansion of nuclear power.

Greenpeace, for instance, has released numerous reports arguing that nuclear power remains economically inviable and doesn't offer a solution to climate change. Other groups ranging from the Nuclear Information and Resource Service to the Australian Conservation Association have made similar statements.

"Going for nuclear allows politicians like Gordon Brown to project the impression that they are taking difficult decisions to solve difficult problems when they are doing nothing of the sort," said John Sauven, executive director of Greenpeace UK, after this week's announcement in Britain. "In reality new nuclear power stations simply will not solve our energy problems and that's because there's a lie at the heart of the government's energy policy. Nuclear power can only deliver a 4 percent cut in carbon emissions some time after 2025. That's too little, and too late, while generations to come will be left with an expensive legacy of our nuclear waste to clean up."