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Visit Other Web Forums A Significant Watershed On The World Energy Scene by  Gioietta Kuo NOTICE: Essays and comments posted on World Future Society Web Forums are the intellectual property of the authors, who retain full responsibility for and rights to their content. For permission to publish, distribute copies, use excerpts, etc., please contact the author. In the article “ The importance of nuclear energy”, it was pointed out that the world has only two choices to go as baseload for electricity generation: fossil fuel or nuclear reactor. Very recently, a highly significant event has just occurred, that is: the prominent Greens in UK, who have over the years been vehemently against nuclear power, have made a volts-face and have come out to support nuclear power as a basis for energy in the UK. This is a hugely significant conclusion on the part of the prominent Greens in the UK and it will have great reverberations the world over. Stephen Tindale, former director of Greenpeace, Lord Chris Smith of Finsbury, the Chairman of the Environmental Agency, Sir David King, the former chief scientific advisor to the government, as well as many other influential environmentalists, have overcome a lifetime’s opposition to warn of the dire consequences of not building more nuclear reactors. About two years ago, when the fever about mitigation of climate change was at its highest and climatologists like James Hansen and Sir David King, not to mention all the environmentalists, advocated a radical change in the world’s energy policy to eliminate the use of fossil fuel. They said If we continued ‘business as usual’, then in 10 years time the planet would reach a point of no return.   Unfortunately, nothing much has happened in the last two years. CO2 continues to be emitted and its ppm in the atmosphere ( parts per million of CO2) continues to go up at 2ppm per year. This has been a source of great disappointment to all those who are are concerned about the future of our planet.  And it should be pointed out that during this period very few advocated nuclear reactors as a solution to stopping the emission of CO2 in the atmosphere. In desperation, a large number of world’s prominent climatologists including James Lovelock have gathered in London to say that time has come for an emergency ‘Plan B’.  This plan would involve highly controversial proposals to lower global temperatures artificially through daring ambitious schemes such as fertilizing the oceans with iron to stimulate algae blooms. These ‘geo-engineering’ approaches were regarded as wild and unpractical.  Not only the expense for application for the whole world would be tremendous, but the final result of such large scale application would be unknown. Finally, some sense has come into the Greens.  What about nuclear energy? Already it supplies 20% of electricity in the UK. For most scientists, the volte-face is not sudden but it took several years to mature. For example Tindale said he is extremely worried that the permafrost in Siberia is melting massively, giving out large quantities of methane, which is a very serious problem for climate change. Lord Smith said that for him the issue is one of reducing CO2.   Over all, the opinion is that whatever the defects of nuclear power, it is preferable to climate change. To emphasize the extent to which the environmentalists are willing to go along the nuclear path: While previously there were seemingly insurmountable objections about nuclear reactor’s safety record, now they are willing to admit that nuclear technology has much improved over the years and accidents like Chernobyl, which was an old Soviet model, are simply not going to happen. As for waste disposal?  There are still concerns, but let’s just bury them into the ground! Ironically it is the environmentalist agenda that made the economics of commercial nuclear reactors look favorable The introduction of a carbon emissions trading mechanism has forced fossil fuel plants to pay for their environmental impact, and the predictable income for nuclear plants is providing much needed incentive for private investors in nuclear power. Europe is in a better position to feel the pressures of scarcity of resources. Recently it was reported that UK had only three weeks of gas left in reserve. The recent stand-off between Russia and Bulgaria is a harbinger of what is to come and if you like it was the last straw on the camel’s back. With the majority of world’s gas resources held by Russia, Qatar and Iran and UK’s own oil and gas reserves from the North Sea on the decline, it is not surprising that UK should plan for energy independence. So far, the French company EDF spent $17.5bn buying British Energy. Two German groups E.ON and RWE are also planning to build five reactors for $14bn over the next 15 years. Nuclear power is finding favor across the world and as the havoc wrought by the financial crisis spreads ever wilder, the energy sector is a rare case of stability, The global civil nuclear industry is currently worth about $42bn a year. But is expected to swell to $70bn in 15 years time. Any country which can prove itself at home will have the potential to sell its expertise across the world.   About the author: Gioietta Kuo PhD, is an advisor and senior fellow, American Center For International Policy Studies, former scientist, Princeton University, former fellow, St Hilda's College, Oxford University, UK. She may be contacted at: kuopet@comcast.net