Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Getting Power to the People

Nuclear energy? Carbon capture?
Solar power? As the debate over climate
change heats up and the demand for
energy grows, what is the best alternative?
The answer lies in the marketplace.

By the New York Times Matthew Wald for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists:

Climate change has the nuclear power industry buzzing that it is poised for a worldwide renaissance.

This by itself is not news; the industry’s publicists are notorious optimists, and they have been predicting a spurt in construction since long before the threat of rising global temperatures became a priority issue.

But fundamental shifts in the world energy marketplace make the talk a little more serious now—and, paradoxically, a lot more speculative.

The subject is hot because climate change is becoming a fixation. Some of the most dire predictions come from analysts who sound like they are channeling Thomas Malthus, who wrote in 1798 that food supply increased arithmetically while population, geometrically....

Pretty good writer, huh? Here's the 19 page PDF
Here's The Bulletin Online home.