Nuclear power is only solution to climate change, says Jeffrey Sachs

[Desdemona prefers this solution: Atmospheric Vortex Engine]

By Fiona Harvey, environment correspondent, www.guardian.co.uk
3 May 2012 Combating climate change will require an expansion of nuclear power, respected economist Jeffrey Sachs said on Thursday, in remarks that are likely to dismay some sections of the environmental movement. Prof Sachs said atomic energy was needed because it provided a low-carbon source of power, while renewable energy was not making up enough of the world’s energy mix and new technologies such as carbon capture and storage were not progressing fast enough. “We won’t meet the carbon targets if nuclear is taken off the table,” he said. He said coal was likely to continue to be cheaper than renewables and other low-carbon forms of energy, unless the effects of the climate were taken into account. “Fossil fuel prices will remain low enough to wreck [low-carbon energy] unless you have incentives and [carbon] pricing,” he told the annual meeting of the Asian Development Bank in Manila. A group of four prominent UK environmentalists, including Jonathon Porritt and former heads of Friends of the Earth UK Tony Juniper and Charles Secrett, have been campaigning against nuclear power in recent weeks, arguing that it is unnecessary, dangerous and too expensive. Porritt told the Guardian: “It [nuclear power] cannot possibly deliver – primarily for economic reasons. Nuclear reactors are massively expensive. They take a long time to build. And even when they’re up and running, they’re nothing like as reliable as the industry would have us believe.” […]

Nuclear power is only solution to climate change, says Jeffrey Sachs