Use nuclear energy

September 21, 2007
By Patrick Moore

With the president's climate change summit less than a week away, the administration is gearing up for a frank, practical discussion with key nations on how to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Attendees should not lose sight of the fact that technologies are up and running in the U.S. today that have been quietly contributing to CO2 emissions reductions for decades. I am referring to the 104 nuclear plants in operation across the country, including the one at Oyster Creek.

Nuclear power generates about 52 percent of the electricity produced in New Jersey and it does so with no carbon-based greenhouse gas, which is thought to cause global warming.

As a co-founder and former leader of Greenpeace, I was once a strong opponent of nuclear power generation, but times have changed and I have updated my views accordingly. Now I find my self part of a growing number of leading environmentalists around the world who have come to understand that nuclear energy is an in tegral part of any campaign to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

I recently toured the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant in Ocean County, and found the staff there to be strongly focused on public safety and environmental protection. Based on my more than 35 years in the environmental movement and my understanding of the current energy trends in the state, I think the extension of Oyster Creek's operating license will play a crucial role in Gov. Corzine's important greenhouse gas legislation.
Not only that, given New Jersey's future electricity needs and the governor's CO2 commitments, it's clear to me that additional nuclear reactors will need to be built to meet demand.

Under regulations approved by the Legislature and signed by the governor, New Jersey intends to turn back the clock by cutting greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 -- a 20 percent reduction. By 2050, emissions are to be fully 80 percent below 2006 levels.

While I applaud Gov. Jon Corzine and the Legislature for taking a leadership position to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, a lot of hard work is needed to meet the state's new goals and the multi- state, Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) goals, which themselves call for a 10 percent reduction in carbon dioxide from power plants by 2019.
Producing electricity from renewable energy -- such as geother mal, biomass or wind power -- is a worthy goal requiring support from the public and private sector. But in the reality of the "here and now," these power sources provide less than 2.2 percent of New Jersey's electricity needs, while coal, with the highest and dirtiest carbon emissions, is used to generate about 19 percent of the electricity.
Natural gas, which also produces large amounts of carbon emissions, accounts for 25 percent of the electricity generated in New Jersey. And it is in short supply and subject to steep price increases.

Increased investment in sustainable energy sources and a heightened commitment to conservation are critical to any effort to curb global warming; but all of those technologies combined cannot do the job alone and, frankly, we won't be able to conserve our way out of the energy crunch, either.

That's why it's so important that we invest in nuclear energy.

The Chernobyl explosion is often raised as an argument against the further development of nuclear power. But Chernobyl was an accident waiting to happen. This early Russian design had no containment structure, unlike all reactors in the West. It was a bad design with shoddy construction and unprofessional operating procedures.

Compare this to Three Mile Island, where safety features averted a catastrophe and radiation was contained inside the plant. Three Mile Island was the only serious nuclear accident in North America and no one was killed or injured.

Modern nuclear power plants follow strict government regulations, which mandate continuous employee training and redundant safety features.

To put Chernobyl in some perspective, the accident stands as the exception that proves the rule that the nuclear energy industry is safe -- among the safest industrial sec tors in the world.

Let's also remember, contrary to the claims of opponents, that spent nuclear fuel is not waste. Re cycling spent fuel, which still contains 90 per cent of its original energy, will greatly reduce the need for treatment and disposal.

We cannot afford to allow the proponents of one technology or another to dominate the energy debate, but instead we must be prepared to use all the tools in our energy arsenal to win the campaign to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

As we await any decisions made at the president's climate change summit, let's not forget that it is the individual states and their residents whose energy decisions will contribute to -- or reduce -- greenhouse gas emissions, locally and globally.

So I am encouraging residents of New Jersey to support re-licensing Oyster Creek and building more nuclear plants, as a genuinely practical plan toward greenhouse gas emissions reduction.

An advisor to industry and government, Dr. Patrick Moore is a co- founder and former leader of Greenpeace and chairman and chief scientist of Greenspirit Strategies Ltd. (www.GreenspiritStrategies.com).