Nuclear energy is an incredibly powerful and efficient method for satisfying the energy needs of our nation. Treehugger.com posted a story, “Energy is Wasted, Wasted, Wasted…”, describing how much energy is wasted to create electricity and power transportation. Nuclear power can be used to produce large amounts of hydrogen which can then be stored and used for transportation and other applications, with better energy efficiencies that cited in the study above. Moreover, newer nuclear plants that use High Temperature Gas Reactors (HTGR) are able to utilize high-temperature electrolysis which greatly improves hydrogen production efficiencies because the bonds between hydrogen and oxygen are much easier to break.

Currently, our country uses natural gas and coal to generate most of our electricity. Including nuclear, renewable, and other forms within our energy portfolio – especially as it relates to producing hydrogen — will help us move away from depending on fossil fuels, and help us reduce greenhouse gases. While there are concerns when it comes to nuclear energy, it is important to realize its potential as we look towards reducing the carbon footprint of our nation.

To learn more about the benefits of hydrogen, we invite everyone to please visit http://www.h2andyou.org.

Just listen to all the animal and plant species now begging humans to do all they can to reduce the temperature, to reduce the greenhouse effect… But will the environmentalists like Amory Lovins, Greenpeace, Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, the Ecologist magazine, Environmental Defense, the Union of Concerned Scientists listen to those species? Will they listen to the dying corals (and nursery beds for thousands of fish species) because of acidification of the oceans caused by excessive CO2 emissions? Will they dare to give up their orthodoxies, held onto tightly for over thirty years? Do they even dare to read and discuss up-to-date, reliably researched information from honorable scientists around the world and take a close and detailed look at that information about nuclear power? Do they dare to re-consider their opinion and start to see through the smoke of their ideological assumptions?

So far it seems that the answers are all ‘No’.

Alas, (for the rapidly warming Earth) they have managed to keep on confusing and addling the minds of millions of people. This indicates a problem of credibility and leadership quality for me. It shows a dire need for a very big intellectual shake up in environmental thinking. Their leadership is not as great as they like to think. And, let us not forget, they are not accountable, just like the corporation leaders…

We desperately need to get beyond this futile discussion about whether nuclear power can help to contain catastrophic climate change or not. Clearly, it can. We need its reliable power all over the world. Tackling poverty – bringing people electricity (amongst other things) – is the quickest way to preserve the environment. So, in my view, environmentalists would do better to turn their attention to how we can support all efforts to prevent proliferation, how we can support international cooperation and diplomacy to avert aggressions in the various hots-spots, and how we can generally help to steer global society safely along a very challenging path now and in coming decades. The rejection of nuclear power by environmentalists is technically and politically indefensible at this juncture in human and Earth history. I hope we shall turn a corner on this point by the end of 2008… The Earth Community is waiting….

No, my friends, there aren’t choices to be made. That is, if global climate change isn’t considered a choice.

I think anti-nukes are right when they argue that there are limits to how fast nuclear plants can be built. They miss the point, though, that renewable energy sources face the same limits, or perhaps more restrictive limits.

Even a casual survey of the dimensions of the problem shows that to avoid the worst consequences of global warming will require all the renewable energy we can manage, all the nuclear plants we can build, and more conservation than anyone wants.