“I just can not imagine any more of these plants should be turned on”
So, after the deep water horizon incident did you advocate for the cessation of all oil exploration and closure of all oil rigs and wells?
The nuclear industry is not alone in having disasters and indeed, so far, they pale in comparison to those that have occurred within the oil, coal, natural gas and even biomass energy production industries.
The Fukushima incident need not have happened if the cooling infrastructure design had been more considered (as it was for similar plants located 11 miles away). Radioactive waste and the potential for disaster is, I agree, a huge downside to nuclear power.
Assuming the climate change science is correct we are headed for global disaster if we don’t reduce CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions in very short order. Approx 11% of the worlds total energy demand comes from renewables (which includes biomass with which there are significant reservations). The rest comes from fossil fuels. If you exclude biomass produced energy in the UK renewables account for just over 3% of total energy used.
Methane is a much more potent GHG than CO2 and its use has its own problems as highlighted in previous posts. So, if we are going to reduce GHG emissions what are the levers we can pull? Reduce the energy we use and reduce the GHG emissions caused by energy production.
What are we going to replace fossil fuel energy production with given, we need to do it rapidly or we will be soon faced with global disaster? Although I’d rather it wasn’t the case it seems to me that nuclear is the only realistic choice. The alternative is to make no choice at all.