Nations Need Nuclear If 'Serious' About Climate Change, Says Bush Advisor
Written by NucNet
Thursday, 10 July 2008
10 Jul (NucNet): An environmental advisor to US president George Bush
has said countries must consider developing nuclear power programmes as
part of their energy mix if they are "serious" about tackling climate
change.
James Connaughton, chairman of the US Council on Environmental Quality and the senior environmental, energy and natural resources advisor to Mr Bush, said: "There is no question, and the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) has made this clear in its assessments, that nuclear energy, responsibly developed by countries capable of managing it, is an essential component of cutting greenhouse gas emissions.so I actually use that as a litmus test for seriousness on climate change.
"A country that has the capability to responsibly use nuclear energy in my view has a responsibility to do so, if we want to get serious about not just cutting greenhouse gas emissions, but also improving public health through reduced air pollution."
Mr Connaughton was speaking on 7 July 2008 during the G8 summit of leaders of the world's leading industrialised nations in Hokkaido, Japan.
He added: "In order to cut emissions in half, if you take the trajectory of countries today, you're talking about avoiding more than what's called 30 gigatonnes of emissions. These are billions of tonnes of emissions that will otherwise go up through coal use and other fossil fuel use.
"One gigatonne reduced is 136 nuclear power plants. That's one-third of the (world's) current number of nuclear power plants. The globe is not on a path to do that much today. And so what we really have to look forward to is a significant scale-up beyond that. And that's just to get a couple of gigatons reduced."
- by John Shepherd
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