The Hindu : Sci Tech : Global warming: nuclear power gaining acceptance

NUCLEAR POWER may have a new dawn, though many wrote it off as a sunset industry. Recently, while speaking at a Pennsylvania nuclear power plant, President Bush focused most strongly on nuclear energy, calling it a source of power that is abundant, affordable, and safe (Environment News Service, May 25, 2006).
The US Energy Policy Act 2005 supports construction of new nuclear plants. It provides loan guarantees, production tax credits, and investment protection for delays beyond the builder's control to build new reactors.
How many, where, when
Wall Street appears to be interested in nuclear power. "It is no longer a matter of debate whether there will be new nuclear plants... " "... Now, the discussion has shifted to predictions of how many, where and when," Nuclear Energy Institute, a nuclear lobby group quotes from the March 13 Special Report of the Fitch Ratings Global Power Group.
The Christian Science Monitor (CSM) reported that in most American universities, most nuclear engineering courses are overbooked. Every seat in the workshops for young professionals who believe in nuclear science and technology is filled.
Edward Mcgaffigan Jr., Commissioner, United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (USNRC) says that NRC may recruit 350 persons per year for the next foreseeable future to cope up with a `tsunami' of applications for new reactors!
Back on the agenda
On 16th May this year, British Prime Minister Tony Blair declared that the issue of new nuclear power generation "was back on the agenda with a vengeance."
Canada, China, several European Union countries, India, Iran, Pakistan, Russia, and South Africa have schedules to build or refurbish about two dozen power plants during the next five years. In the U.S. and the U.K., governmental preparations are under way that may lead to 15 new reactor orders by 2007 (Physics Today, February 2006).
Finland is constructing a new reactor. Western Europe is quietly backing away from planned nuclear phase-outs. France is moving in to construct a new 1,600 MWe Reactor.
Worldwide, nearly 80 per cent of the 441 commercial nuclear reactors currently in operation are more than 15 years old. New reactors will have to replace decommissioned ones to maintain nuclear power's position in the overall energy mix.
Nearer home
Nearer home, Unit 4 of the Tarapur Atomic Power Project, India's largest nuclear power reactor became commercial in December 2005. On May 20 this year, Unit 3 of TAPP went critical. In 2007, five units including the first unit (1,000 MWe) of the Kudankulam Power Project are scheduled to go commercial.
Benign view
Cracks are developing among environmentalists. They hate nuclear power but like renewables. Sun is not always reliable. Wind, often lazy and slow.
They are unreliable and add totally a small percentage. If we need power that is always available, we have to have it from coal or natural gas or nuclear.
Sir David King, U.K. government's chief scientist warned that global warming is more serious than terrorism. James Lovelock, a well-known Green guru concurred. "We have no time to experiment with visionary energy sources; civilisation is in imminent danger and has to use nuclear — the one safe, available energy source — now or suffer the pain soon to be inflicted by our outraged planet" Lovelock wrote in The Independent . Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, for whom opposition to nuclear power is an article of faith, rejected his claim. Late Hugh Montefoire, former Bishop of Birmingham, a trustee of Friends of the Earth, quit the agency to support nuclear power.
Greenpeace leader Patrick More and Christine Todd Whitman, former Administrator, Environmental Protection Agency and former Governor, New Jersey, set up the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition to promote nuclear power.
"The only technology ready to fill the gap and stop carbon dioxide loading is nuclear power," Stewart Brand, a founder of the Whole Earth Catalogue wrote in Technology Review (2005).
Wired Magazine noted that even the Union of Concerned Scientists, a well known anti nuclear agency has a growing pro-nuke faction.
Softening resistance
According to the magazine, much of the resistance of the Greens to nuclear power will soften if the industry dealt with issues such as proliferation, safety, waste management and the like.
K.S. PARTHASARATHYKSPARTH@YAHOO.CO.UK
(The author is a former Secretary, AERB, Mumbai)