Nuclear Energy Feasability

Great Britain is planning to build five new nuclear power plants. And in the United States, President Bush and many representatives in the House and Senate are advocating nuclear power as a solution to global warming. But the Union of Concerned Scientists and the International Atomic Energy Agency say nuclear power is not the answer to global warming.

The Union of Concerned Scientists says that new nuclear plants could not make a substantial contribution to reducing U. S. global warming emissions for at least two decades.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, an organization dedicated to spread the peaceful use of the atom, agrees that nuclear power could not grow fast enough to slow climate change. The world would have to be prosperous to afford the growth in nuclear power necessary to significantly affect global warming. That prosperity would require energy using tradition fossil fuels. The International Atomic Energy Agency concludes that global warming would doom the planet before nuclear power could save it."

Other issues against nuclear power are the dangers to workers in mining for uranium and transportation of nuclear waste on national roadways, as well as the safe disposal of waste. Yucca Mountain in Nevada is the only site seriously being considered for long-term storage of nuclear waste, and it is opposed by all five Nevada federal representatives.