Time for change

Finland's Olkiluoto nuclear power plant: The Olkiluoto construction project in Finland is rapidly becoming an example of all that can go wrong in economic terms with nuclear new build. It demonstrates the key problems of construction delays, cost overruns and hidden subsidies.

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How much CO₂ is produced by atomic energy?

One of the few pros of nuclear power is the relatively low emission of carbon dioxide (CO2), one of the major causes of global warming. For this reason, it has been proposed as "the" method to mitigate the effects of climate change. However a recent life cycle analysis showed that nuclear power produces 4 to 10 times higher CO2 emissions per kWh electricity than renewable energies.

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Current discussions about possibilities to mitigate the effects of global warming have also opened discussions about a potential revival of nuclear power. In this context, it is often argued with very low cost of electricity from nuclear power plants. This seems to be one of the strongest arguments in favor of atomic energy. To determine the future cost of electricity from nuclear power, the cost from currently operating power stations is taken into account. This is not correct, however.

 

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Summary of Eurobarometer survey published on March 13, 2008. The report shows that Europeans are increasingly aware of the role played by the environment in their daily lives. More than 95% of European citizens feel that it is important to protect the environment. Some 80% also feel it influences their quality of life and consider that they have a role to play in protecting it. Climate change (global warming) tops the list of Europeans' environmental concerns, followed by pollution and man-made disasters.

A majority are also uneasy about the use of genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) in agriculture.

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With continued population growth, increased per capita consumption, and anticipated climate change, the global water situation appears bleak. Since water scarcity is a highly localized issue determined by regional climatic and demographic factors, a single solution will not solve all of the world's water scarcity problems.

However, improved management, more water efficient technologies, and support for the world's most vulnerable countries and ecosystems will likely play leading roles. According to the UN-backed World Commission on Water, coping with water scarcity will require global investment of $100 billion per year. Willingness to invest this sum will be vital to the future of human well-being and economic development in all countries of the world.

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An official study from the German government shows the risk of getting cancer is significantly increasing for small children growing up in the neighborhood of a nuclear power station. This is in particular true for leukemia, a special case of cancer.

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"There are no knowns. There are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns - that is to say, there are things we now know we don't know but there are also unknown unknowns.

There are things we do not know we don't know. So when we do the best we can and we pull all this information together, and we then say well that's basically what we see as the situation, that is really only the known knowns and the known unknowns. And each year we discocover a few more of those unknown unknowns."

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«Aiding oil, harming the climate» is a new report from the organisation "Oil Change International", which shows dramatically that the major investments still go into the oil, gas and coal sector instead of renewable energies. For more than 25 years, wealthy countries have been using aid and other foreign assistance to subsidize the expansion of the international oil industry, a practice known as “Oil Aid”. It is impossible to actively subsidize the expansion of the oil industry and effectively fight global warming at the same time.

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There is no doubt any more: In order to mitigate global warming, the emission of greenhouse gases must be reduced, the sooner the better. This will then lead to a stabilization of the greenhouse gas concentration in the atmosphere - and in the very long term hopefully to a decrease of its concentration.The level at which the greenhouse gas concentration gets stabilized does determine the warming effect, i.e. the temperature increase.

The following graph shows the relation between the greenhouse gas concentration (expressed as CO2-equivalents) and the resulting average global temperature increase on the surface.

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